You Like Me! You Really Like Me! Seven Ways To Boost Your Popularity Online.

So you thought you left high school far behind? All those cliques and crowds and cool kids? The fads, the fashion, the frenzy to be popular?

Well, guess what? It’s baaaack.

But as most of you well know, in the Web 2.0 era, it’s called Social Media. And just like in high school, how someone winds up as a popular kid on the social networking sites has been largely a mystery. Until now.

Today we’re de-mystifying the puzzling path to popularity online, starting with these 7 tips:

Smile
A recent study by British psychologists proved that smiling in your profile picture may add up to more friends. What the researchers found after conducting research on Facebook was that smiling students were surrounded by others who were also smiling in small “happiness clusters.” Those who were not smiling seem to be located more peripherally in the network. After performing statistical analysis, they determined that those who smile also tend to have more friends – on average one extra friend, which is good considering that people only tend to have six close friends. Those who smiled were also more likely to be at the center of the network when compared to those who don’t. Wanna boost your popularity? Show those pearlies!

Pick the right social network for you
The sheer number of social networking sites can be daunting. But like High School, that doesn’t mean you should join everything from Chamber Singers to Student Council to Goths R Us. Visit the sites you find interesting but don’t feel pressured to sign up. If you’re networking for business, you can actually hurt your company’s online reputation if you sign up, visit once or twice, and then never return. Especially in this economy — not keeping up with your profile may leave the impression that your business has closed (or you’ve been fired.) So choose your sites carefully — not even Sally Field could be ‘really, really’ liked everywhere.

It’s nice to be important. But it’s more important to be nice.
Okay, so it’s corny. But there’s a reason we all secretly nod right along with this old adage — it’s true. Being nice to the newbie who has just tweeted for the first time and is trying to grow his Twitter account; replying with a ‘Thanks for the follow’; or commenting with an @ response is one of the secrets of being one of the popular kids on Twitter. Making a practice of automatically Following the person who Followed you (unless someone appears to be an obvious spammer) is another way to be ‘really, really liked.’

Here’s another vintage truism: Don’t worry about being interesting. Be interested instead.

We live in a world of Me Media. Every post, every tweet, every comment is all about ME, ME, ME. This is why it is so refreshing online when someone steps outside their universe and pays attention to yours. Maybe they actually read your blog and leave an insightful comment. Maybe they pick up on something you tweeted and take the conversation offline, so it can go beyond 140 characters. Maybe they listen to your job woes — and send you a link from a job post that sounds just like you.

Make your online connection more powerful — meet in person.

At the recent WOMMA Summit in Vegas, Jason Anello, Ideologist at Yahoo, talked about the power of tieing online experiences to the real world, citing the value of tapping into all our senses, especially touch. ‘We’re not seeing each other anymore’ — and even our communications, like email, are missing inflection and emotion. So when we do connect in the real world, the online bond actually strengthens. It’s not always possible to actually see your buddy in Taipei or the Dalmatian Islands in the flesh. But if you do have the chance to tweet-up, meet-up or attend events with your online friends, go for it.

Learn the (underground) rules and play by them.

Each social networking site has its own ‘underground’ rules beyond the obvious FAQs. For example, some people won’t accept a Facebook friend request if they haven’t met the Requester in person. On Twitter, some users won’t return the Follow if the Tweeter hasn’t filled out a profile or posted relevant account information. If your Facebook friend or Linkedin connection request seems to be eternally pending, this may be a tactful way of declining. (Related to ‘I’m washing my hair that night’ or ‘my cousin’s in town that weekend’ during Prom season.) Keep in mind that many users divide their social networks into personal or business and prefer not to blend the two. Your Linkedin connection may not want to check out the youtube of your pre-schooler’s star turn as as SpongeBob or your Emo alter ego on MySpace Music.

Be real.
That’s the whole point of social networking. Be a real, expressive, honest to goodness person. Don’t just shoot links, post self-serving Status updates or in general, use social networks in a way that increases the already-ballooning bogus quotient. Authenticity is the new cool.

Dentyne’s Anti-Facebook “Make Face Time” Campaign Encourages Us To Get Real.

So I was deep into editing Trend 6: The Return of Real & The Urgency of Touch for my upcoming book when I discovered this refreshing (pun intended) new campaign from gum-giant Dentyne and ad agency, McCann. The creative suggests we log off occasionally to go out and “make face time” with a friend.

“We’ve got nothing against the internet, but when people are surfing the web, they’re missing the best part of life — being together.”

It’s a compelling concept, one that reminds me a little of the YouTube phenom Free Hugs, now a user-generated-content classic with 33,644,908 views. The idea is made all the more engaging by the Make Face Time website that automatically shuts down after 3 minutes. The site also features a ‘Smiley Chamber of Doom’ intended to smash to smithereens those icons of fakery.

I’ve been kvetching lately about the importance of being a real friend during these recessionary times rather than just a Friended Friend. Then Jason Anello, Yahoo Buzz’s Ideologist, gave a great talk at the WOMMA Summit last week on the importance of connecting the online and offline worlds –and mentioned the increasing value of touch. Another project reminded me that massage therapy has been in explosive growth mode, jumping to $11 billion a year industry.

Then there was this weekend’s MotrinGate, in which Moms railed against the baby-wearing, baby-bonding experience being labeled ‘a fashion accessory.’ Mombotv.com has a nice post on this age-old practice, especially the way health workers in many developing countries promote skin to skin contact between mother and newborn.  Didn’t we all write termpapers in college citing the wire-mother-monkeys?

Author Desmond Morris says, “Something special happens when two people touch each other physically, whether it be a handshake, a pat on the back, or a slap on the face.”

Obviously I am a huge advocate of the life-changing, life-building, boundary shattering Internet. But I am also a huge advocate of getting the hell offline and LOL-ing the real way.

Why Elections Have Been Changed Forever — And No, It’s Not The Black or The Babe Thing.

2004 seems like soooo 4 years ago. But in election years, that’s actually an entire generation. Or two. Because what happened in the 1460 days between Kerry-Bush and Obama-McCain was something that changed the course of every election forever.

Social Media.

During the 2004 Election season, there was no:

• YouTube (2005)
• Facebook (2006)
• Twitter (2006)
• MySpace was up and running in 2003 but it was largely a music-oriented Friendster.
• Digg was founded in 2004, after the election.
• The Huffington Post was founded in May, 2005.
• Politico was founded in 2007.
• Pioneering site Technorati was just beginning to cover the exploding blogosphere in 2004.
• RSS, which made every voter a potential publisher, wasn’t widely known until 2005.
• The term Crowdsourcing cropped up in a Wired story in 2006.
• While Howard Dean had his hefty email list in 2004, no one had a list of three million + cell phone numbers with which to introduce the new Vice Presidential candidate.

And importantly, way back in 2000 and 2004, there was no instant way to report problems with voting as there is this year via Wired’s special election day service.

Or to keep every single moment of Election Day uber-transparent. Click here to follow the election via Twitter.

Here’s an idea I love from iStrategy Labs founder Peter Corbett: Will text messages someday be the twenty-first century version of FDR’s Fireside Chats?

Guru’s Note: Interestingly, the first of FDR’s Fireside Chats was about ‘The Banking Crisis.’

The Social Networking Site Facebook Should Have Created.

It feels like a no-brainer.

All those millions of college students storming Facebook everyday.  Doesn’t it make perfect sense for the edu pioneer to design a “new platform for college students to share reviews, photos, videos, documents, and more with students on their campus and across the country?  Wouldn’t they be the obvious choice to design a site the best place for high school students to find out what life is really like at America’s colleges, and to make friends to help them find the school that’s right for them?”

Guess again.  It’s not Facebook, it’s a new site called UNIGO.  The brainchild of Jordan Goldman and interactive agency, Deepend New York, the site aims to give current and prospective students a social-media-centric way to learn about colleges on the Web.  Although still in beta, more than 200 colleges are already profiled — I found my alma maters, University of Wisconsin and University of Oregon easily.  Unigo has plans to include every college in America.

Unigo is packed with the social networking features this generation craves, from candid videos, ratings and reviews (already there are 30,000+) to friend requests/messaging.  There’s even a network of Unigo reps on campus (UW’s seems to be a guy named Phil), to potentially create an offline presence.

Unigo launches just in time for all those high school valedictorians to get help with their Early Decision decisions.  Smart.

Guru’s Note:  Although I can see why Facebook didn’t pursue this natural brand extension, it had to be enormously tempting. Strategically, the social networking leader needed to move beyond singlemindedly serving only its traditional psychographic, as it did in 2006 when it opened the site to users beyond the edu address. But imagine if MZ and Company simply tapped into the huge percentage of Facebooking college students (some 85% in the US) and asked them for Ratings, Reviews and ‘the truth’ about their colleges. I’m glad they didn’t. It’s a healthier economy when smaller players get a piece of the pie, too.

Study Reveals 93% of Americans Expect Companies To Have A Social Media Presence.

It’s one of the first questions I get when I’m speaking at an event, no matter what topic’s on the program. Whether it’s mom marketing, green products, new trends, or travel/tourism, the question is always the same: Should my company have a social media presence?

Before this new social media study, I had a pat answer. You already have a social media presence online. Your customers are already talking about you. Tweaking your brand. Kvetching about your customer service. Tagging you. Whether you like it or not.

You’re simply not participating in the conversation. Yet. Then I usually wrap up my spiel with a plea to jump on board to join the party in progress.

But now I’ve got some powerful new ammunition on my side, thanks to the 2008 Business in Social Media Study, conducted by Cone. According to the research, if your company does not have a social media presence online, you are missing out on the 93% of Americans who believe you should, and the 85% of Americans who are expecting to interact with your company through social media.

This study should crush any remaining questions about whether corporate social media interaction is necessary. A solid 60% of Americans are now interacting with companies using social media –and one in four are interacting more than once a week.

Customer satisfaction, always at the top of every company’s To Do List, is also now proven to be higher for businesses with a social media presence. 56% of consumers feel a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they interact through social media.

This encouraging stat strongly jibes with one of the emerging themes from various Social Media Competitive Landscape research studies I’ve conducted for some of the major online players. As they say, ‘the Internet changed everything’ — and seldom is this more true than with customer care. When “Tom” posted his white T-shirted self on every new MySpace page and used the site’s pioneering social media tools to invite millions to IM, email and be his new bff, it made other customer care strategies feel stale and corporate. The majority of his MySpace friends likely have no idea that their own personal Go-To-Geek “Tom” is actually the gazillion dollar co-founder of the empire. Not since Steve Case’s weekly letter to AOL members has a Founder been so sociable. 

This is clearly promising news for brands looking to build or deepen relationships. Rather than view a company’s social media efforts as an intrusion, Americans are welcoming the open door to discussion.

More numbers from the Cone study reveal that Consumers believe:

• Companies should use social networks to solve their problems (43%).
• Companies should solicit feedback on their products and services (41%) via social media.
• Companies should develop new ways for consumers to interact with their brand (37%) through social media.
• Companies should market to consumers (25%) using social media.

And lest you think that social media only attracts the collegiate Facebook crowd, the study also showed that the most lucrative higher-income households are expecting social media interaction with companies they do business with. Households with incomes of $75K+ believe that companies should seek to reach them via social media and two-thirds of the wealthiest households say they feel a stronger connection to brands they can interact with online.  This bodes very well for categories such as travel and leisure and technology.

What does this mean for your business?  Do you still need convincing?

Social media has rapidly gone from a Maybe to a Must-Have in your marketing plan. Your customers are expecting you to be present in social networking communities, to provide social networking features on your own sites,  to interact with, listen to and engage them in authentic and meaningful conversation. 

Are you going to say “no” to the 93% of consumers expecting you to join the conversation?

This study was conducted online September 11-12 2008 and surveyed 1,092 adults.

Thanks to Erika Preuss at Business Social Networking.”

Social Media for Small Business: Dell’s New Facebook Community.

A couple of years ago when I was covering CES for MediaPost, my prized press pass landed me in the front row for Michael Dell’s keynote speech. As serendipity would have it, Mr. Dell wound up sitting next to me as he waited to take center stage. I couldn’t help but notice how nervous he was. You couldn’t blame him; the company was doing its damnest to recover from Dell Hell.

And recover they did. In his talk, Michael Dell managed to convince this skeptic and former Dell user that his company had turned customer-centric. From Idea Storm to carbon offsetting programs, Dell was power-listening to its users. And today, there’s more proof that this company is really getting it. Here’s the announcement from the WOM website:

Dell has joined with Facebook to launch a community and guide series called ‘Social Media for Small Business’ intended to provide SMB customers with insight on how they can leverage social media to expand their business. The community has been created as a Facebook Page and includes:

• Guides on how to use blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, “crowdsourcing” and other social media channels to cost-effectively reach and serve the “Connected Era;”
• “Screencast” introductions to social-media tools like Technorati, Netvibes and WordPress;
• A discussion board to spark conversation and idea sharing;
• A best-practice forum that features a different SMB weekly;
• SMB deals and news from Dell Small and Medium Business.

 
When I heard about Dell’s latest savvy customer-centric move, I was so impressed, I zipped over to order myself a new Dell desktop and discovered yet another shrewd user-friendly move: Dell offers a downgrade’ to XP on its Vista computers, if the buyer chooses.

Guru’s Note: Kudos to financial innovators like Visa and FiServ for reaching out to customers via social media. It’s way past time for marketers to adopt the ‘share, not sell’ mantra that most of the Web 2.0 world has long accepted. The Visa Business Network has partnered with Facebook, offering a content rich Facebook page for small business plus $100 ad credit to get started. And who couldn’t love them for their Signature VISA VIP Tent (and matching VIP toilets) at the recent Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park?

Fiserv’s MyMoney program, which initially is being sold only to credit unions, lets members of participating institutions view account balances and transaction histories and transfer funds online without leaving their Facebook page. This application is so highly regarded that it won The Banker magazine’s 2008 Retail Award for Online Innovation. Ain’t it grand when our major corporations are doing something for us, the small businesses of the world, rather than whooping it up at the St. Regis Spa, courtesy of our bail-out bucks?