However, just like all great services, Google Places comes with its downsides. Here are three of them.

Impact of Google Places on Adwords advertisers

The worst impact is probably on Adwords advertisers. The whole right hand side column on the search results page is shifted down by hundreds of pixels to make place for the map on the upper right corner. Visitors with a low browser resolution will see the ads way below the fold. Also, as you scroll down the page, the map remains in a fixed position and overlaps the ads column. Users with a 1024×768 browser screen can see as little as three ads from a total of ten or more.

Since positions 4 to 10 are shifted down the page, cost per click bids for the first three spots will increase dramatically since they are the most visible. It’s one thing to have your ad placed slightly below the fold and another not to have it seen until the user scrolls down.

This is a downside of the service as a whole and shouldn’t impact individual Google Places users.

Impact on SERPs – an assumption

This hasn’t been tested nor thoroughly documented yet, so take it as an open question. Google Places is definitely great for helping users find nearby brick and mortar businesses. Let’s take the (fictional) example that I was running an IT support shop located in Hamilton. A user in Hamilton searches for “IT support” and lands on my page. Great. But what if another user from Ontario searches for “IT support”? It would be natural for offline businesses to be shown first, but would my page’s rank be significantly worse because Google “knows” I’m located in Hamilton? Would my rankings be better if I hadn’t used Google Places in the first place?

We haven’t tested this yet, but I feel the concern is legitimate and you might want to do some split testing if you aim at a wider market.

Bad publicity through fake negative reviews

There is not much an unethical competitor can do when it comes to lowering your search engine rankings (Other than re-posting your content all-over the Internet hoping Google will trigger a massive duplicate content penalty, but that rarely works).

When it comes to Google Places, your competition can post false negative reviews that can lower the credibility of your service.  Unfortunately there is not much you can do about it, other than contacting Google and explaining that whatever your “fan club” wrote about you isn’t true. If the reviews are cleverly written and don’t look spammy at all it can be quite hard to have them removed – Google might give your reviewers the benefit of doubt and just leave their opinions there.

Again, I do endorse the service (we at Lifeline Design use it). This article is only meant to let you know about some of the potential pitfalls if you sign up with Google Places.

Take your time to test and learn

If you have never tackled video marketing, take a bit of time to study and learn. Don’t just rush at getting thousands of subscribers – there will be plenty of time for that later on. The look and feel of your channel can be tweaked and changed without breaking the bank, so study a bit and learn what will work and what won’t for your brand and company.

Don’t over-commit

I can’t stress this enough. Just don’t. Outsource or hire someone to do the video uploads, comment moderation, network with people, ban trolls, accept or deny friend requests and what not. However, don’t just hand the job over to an intern or a random dude on Digital Point. Look for a specialist, someone who fully understands the Social Media phenomenon and can truly represent your company.

Don’t bore your audience

The same goes with all social platforms, but your Youtube subscribers need more entertainment than any other social media “junkies”. For example, it’s alright to post your latest TV commercials on your Youtube channel, but don’t also upload ten variations of the same video (“the making of”, “director’s cut”, “PG-13 version” and so on) unless each of them has a legitimate value.

Upload videos in various resolutions

People access Youtube these days from their cell phones as well as plasma TV’s. Make your videos accessible for all devices and connection types. Have 240p versions as well as 1080p. Granted it may take you some extra time to convert your video to each format, but you will gain more subscribers in the long run.

Interlink your social media platforms

Don’t let your Youtube channel just lie there. Post regular updates from your Twitter account, embed videos on your blog or other Web 2.0 properties and link your Youtube channel to your Facebook account. Cross-linking will help you maximize your reach.

Don’t forget to have some fun

It’s more than alright to post videos from your latest team building, last year’s Christmas party or just how people in your company hang out during the lunch break. Such videos will make your customers and prospects feel closer to you when they see your “human” side. You just have to make sure the videos don’t contain any content that wouldn’t line up with your corporate message.

Grow rather than launch

I do advise you against launching a blog with only one or two articles, but when it comes to videos you can advertise a somewhat “empty” channel. Web video is the only social media field where “grassroots movement” can catch on with the public. Be patient and let your audience grow naturally rather than expecting zillions of subscribers overnight.

Automated responses with sales pitches

Always try to sell, especially at first sight! Everyone that follows you on Twitter does so because they want to buy your products, even if they aren’t quite sure what you’re selling. Set up a bot that replies back to your followers with a line like “Are you looking for an affordable car insurance? I’m sure you are! Check out http://yoursitehere.com. Thanks for following!” It works, trust me!

Absurd claims

This is probably the easiest way of failing with Twitter. Open up your Twitter account (or favorite desktop client) and start writing about how you make $175,233.79 a month with your bulletproof method. Pay utmost attention to the figure: it has to be impressive (six digits is a good start, pros can go for seven) and shouldn’t be rounded, so that it looks as real as possible. Don’t write “$180,000”! $175,233.79 looks much more credible.

Retweet each and every line the “big fish” posted

If you sell cellular phones, follow Apple, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and other players and re-post all their tweets. Simply add a “LOL”, “WOW” or “Nice” before the “RT:”. Repeat it for a while and Steve Jobs himself will call you up and offer you a groundbreaking deal on the new iPad 2. Professional retweeters might also get invited on an Oprah show, so keep up the work!

Follow as many people as you can

Don’t fall for all that hype that you need quality content, an authority site and a strong online presence to build up your Twitter followers base. That’s for newbies, you’re far beyond that! The only reasonable way you can get a million followers is by following ten million people, that’s how the pros do it! And who cares what their interests are? Even Donald Trump could benefit from your cool trick on how to get an extra hundred thousand visitors per day! Oh, and remember to unfollow and follow back everyone who hasn’t followed you – they must have missed the chance. Repeat this 20-30 times a day until they come to their senses. They will most likely apologize for not following you in the first place.

Set up many accounts and tweet about the same service

If they didn’t like it the first time, maybe they’ll fall for it once they hear the same line from more sources. It’s all about building credibility – if a lot of people say your service is great then it must be, right? When Twitter bans all your accounts, make sure you appeal and dispute their decision. Write on all webmaster forums about how Twitter messed up your business. No one likes bad publicity, they will re-instate you.

Any of the above tips can help you wreck your social media efforts, but if you combine two or more then your (lack of) success is guaranteed!

Use a real photo

If you haven’t already done it, get a Gravatar account and upload a picture. To build trust and credibility, don’t use a cartoon, stylized picture or company logo. People want to know who they are talking to and associate the name or nickname with a face. Since avatars are usually very small in size (40 by 40 pixels), a headshot photo is highly preferred.

Have your profile link point to the right place

Linking to an irrelevant site may seem like spam and your comment may be removed, no matter how insightful it is. If you comment on an automotive site it’s not okay to link to bestflowerstore.com. If your link is a completely off-topic link to an About Us or Bio page, that’s not okay. Though if you comment as Bob Smith, linking to bestflowerstore.com/about-bob might pass moderation.

It’s alright to promote your content

… just don’t go overboard with it. Your own links placed inside the comment are alright as long as they are highly relevant to the context and are meant to support your ideas. It is common sense to use only one link if it’s on a site you control and not more than two or three for other sites. Yes, you can link three times to Wikipedia and no, a comment like “Nice post, I’ve also written about it on my blog: INSERT LINK HERE” is not alright.

One liners are sometimes alright

If you enjoyed a blog post, it’s considered common courtesy to thank the author. In this case, your comment doesn’t necessarily have to bring more knowledge to the discussion. Just don’t be really brief – explain what exactly you enjoyed about the article and if it’s the case, how it has helped you (Given you better insight on a certain topic, saved you $, etc.). Bloggers enjoy a friendly pat on the back, but make sure you give a few arguments.

All in all, you should use common sense when commenting on other blogs. Put yourself in the owner or moderators’ shoes: if you would approve a post like yours on your blog, then it’s alright to hit the Submit button.

You didn’t track anything

If you sent your message out into the wild and waited for the sales to roll in without monitoring clicks, channels or impressions then you got the whole idea wrong. Even with traditional offline marketing you can monitor how many billboards you have posted across town or how many flyers you handed out in the subway – why wouldn’t you make use of the tracking tools that social media offers? If you haven’t monitored anything you can’t diagnose your campaign, you can’t see what went wrong and why.

You thought you could do social media in ten minutes a day

Social media campaigns are like marriages. You probably won’t pull it through if you only talk to your other half for ten minutes every day.

You didn’t capture leads

A lot of visitors who get on your landing page won’t buy your product. In fact, a huge majority won’t. In terms of conversion rates, anything over 10% is very high, no matter what you are selling (Unless, of course, you are offering free gold nuggets and you actually deliver them. But even then, your conversion rate won’t be close to 100%). This doesn’t mean that you can’t “re-use” visits who didn’t convert. Capture their email addresses or ask them to join your Facebook page and follow up later. They didn’t buy your weight loss product? That could be because they are in top shape or they thought it was too expensive. Sell them a subscription to a gym. Offer them a cheaper product or explain why the first one was well worth the price.

You didn’t set clear objectives

I’ve seen a lot of companies create a Facebook page or a Twitter account without a clear goal in mind. The “build it and they will come” paradigm might work with social media, but you need to define some objectives. Do you want more buzz around your brand? Want to drive more traffic to your sales pages? See how the market would welcome a new product? What’s the point?

You didn’t use the right platform

LinkedIn is probably not the best place to advertise your new pizza delivery service, nor is MySpace a good place to post your resume. Use a variety of platforms and see which one works best for your campaign. Split test your message.

Your target was wrong

It’s difficult to market luxury cars to teenagers. If the results of your campaign weren’t as expected, you might want to check if you addressed the right demographics. A lot of social media platforms allow you to track information like age group, location, gender or personal interests. Make sure you use these features!

Let’s have a look at what each of them are.

What is a Page on Facebook?

If Facebook was the Internet, a Page would then be a website. In their own words, Pages are meant for organizations, businesses, celebrities or brands to offer information to the public who chose to connect with them (much like a website). A Page is also known as a business account and I have already outlined some major differences between a regular profile and a business account.

What is a Group on Facebook?

You might already be familiar with the concept from Yahoo or Google. A Facebook group is much in that line. Groups are to be built around a topic and gather a community that shares the same interest. People who join a Facebook Group can discuss relevant topics, share news and network with others.

What is a Facebook Profile?

A Facebook Profile or Personal account is just what the name suggests: a feature to be used by an individual rather than a business. A personal account is perfect to upload pictures from your vacation, keep in touch with high school buddies or announce that you will be attending events. By the way the feature is built, a plain profile doesn’t come with a lot of features a business would use, but can be more than enough for an individual.

Profiles vs Pages vs Groups: which one should I use?

Again, it depends on the type of project you are going to run and the features you need. Here are some tips:

• The degree of control. Groups offer by far the most control over who gets to do what. You can set up permissions as to who may access your group, approve newcomers by hand and restrict their posting rights. With Pages or Profiles on the other hand, you can solely restrict the access by age and location.
• Applications. Pages and profiles can host applications, groups can’t.
• Personal versus corporate. Groups are linked to your personal account – whenever you broadcast a message to your group it appears as coming from you as an individual. Pages, on the other hand, aren’t necessarily linked to a certain person. You can read more on this in the aforementioned article.

All in all, groups and profiles are great for interaction at a personal level, while pages (business accounts) should be used by businesses, artists, brands or celebrities.

Being overly conservative

Don’t be overly serious, it will only complicate the lives of the small amount of followers who will actually try to read your tweets. Leave the conservative approach for LinkedIn. Twitter is all about witty and more personal comments that will make your followers interested in what you have to offer.

Say something funny every once in a while. Retweet a viral video, or make your followers smile. Create a bond that’s a bit less formal than the standard business relationship and turn your followers into friends.

Stating facts without engaging the community

Contrary to what site operators commonly think, the Internet doesn’t revolve around them and their company. Unless you are a well established company or a famous superstar, people won’t care about you. No one will be interested that you had your coffee at Starbucks that morning (unless you are Oprah,) nor that your expensive car broke down. Engage your followers in conversations. Rather than simply stating facts and personal experiences, ask them to do something.

Proper attitude? Dealing with the two examples above, you could try to

• Invite some of your followers to have coffee with you on a certain morning. Make it sound like a contest and offer them some promotional gifts. An offline meeting with some of your followers could be grounds for a more solid business relationships once they get to meet “the person behind the Twitter account.”
• Asking your followers where you can get a new tail pipe for your Buick. Your audience will see you are not just a robot, but a real person with real problems.

Discussing sales in the main stream

You can’t elaborate any sales proposal on Twitter. Period. You can’t convince anyone that your product is the best in 160 characters or less! If you have leads on Twitter, ask them for an email address, instant messenger or phone number and do the sale the old fashioned way. Otherwise the platform limitations will keep you from fully describing the benefits of your product and you will lose customers. Just like you wouldn’t do a sales pitch via SMS, stay away from Twitter.

Sales talk shouldn’t be mistaken for simply pointing @users to your product description page if they ask where they can buy product X. It’s alright to hint your followers on what you are selling, as long as they know what they want and they have their minds already made.

This wraps up our second episode on Twitter mistakes you should avoid when posting to your account.

Everybody knows that subscribing is free

Pitches like “You can get an email account for free” or “Host your site with us free of charge” used to work ages ago. Unless you focus on an older than average audience, don’t use anything along the lines of “Subscribe to our feed FOR FREE!” Subscribing to RSS feeds IS free, and even the least tech-savvy people who know how to open a browser might be using Google Reader. Mentioning, even remotely, that subscribing to your feed is free of charge will only raise some warning flags in the minds of your readers (it’s free to sign up, then they’ll bug me to do something else—thanks but no, thanks!)

Use a theme that ‘knows’ RSS

When setting up a new blog, make sure you have a ‘RSS-enabled’ theme. Especially if you are on a tight budget, it will cost you more to buy a dull premium theme and hire a freelancer to modify it than getting a good one from the very beginning. Your theme should display a RSS box in a place where it’s clearly visible, with a design smoothly blended in.

Offer a feed for mobile users

It’s the 21st century and almost everybody owns at least a smartphone. It’s the age of tablets, so a lot of your readers will already own an iPad or a Galaxy Tab. People use mobile devices to chat on MSN, read their email, browse their favorite sites and, most important, read their favorite blogs. This is a field you should be banking on. You can’t ignore the phenomenon, since it’s one of the fastest growing markets in the world. You can forward your feed to a third party service like Mobify or use a WordPress plugin like WP Touch to offer a version of your blog to mobile subscribers.

Ethical bribes

Rest assured, an ethical bribe isn’t even remotely against the law. You should offer your subscribers an incentive—a free ebook, report or video series of whatever you are selling. Yes, you may have thought that this only works with email marketing, but no, you can offer dedicated content solely to your subscribers with a WordPress plugin like Text Link Ads’ Feedvertising. This plugin allows you to display a few lines at the bottom of the feed, content which can only be read by your RSS subscribers. Use your imagination and give them something worth their while.

Offer a dedicated subscription landing page

Set up a page on your WordPress blog dedicated just to converting visitors into feed subscribers. Present them the benefits of reading your feed, and start driving traffic to it. Use any ethical technique you are about to, from SEO to PPC.

This wraps up our second episode on how to get subscribers to your RSS feed. How many subscribers do you have and how did you get them to click the button?

Before we get started, you will need a Google account. It can be the same one you use for any of Google’s services (the feed reader, calendar, Gmail, Adsense, Adwords, Picasa or any of the rest.) If you don’t have a Google account you can get one here.

Step 1. Point your browser to http://www.google.com/local/add. Log in. Hit the large “List your business” button. You will be pointed to provide your phone number, so that Google can look up existing information on your business. I will further assume that it’s a brand new number that Google knows nothing about.

Step 2. Fill in the Basic Information. The details are more or less straightforward – you will need to fill in the country, name of your company, the address, city or town, province, postal code, email address, website and the category that best describes your business. The email and website fields aren’t mandatory, you can simply check “I don’t have a website” if this is your first shot at taking your business online.

Step 3. Make sure that the information on the right hand side is accurate. Go back and tweak details if it doesn’t show correctly, or use the Fix incorrect marker location link at the bottom of the map.

Once everything appears to be alright, proceed to the next step.

Step 4. Does your venue offer services to customers in your stores, or do you service them at their locations? Since John has a used car shop, we’ll tick the first option (which is marked by default.)

Step 5. What are your business hours? The section is quite self-explanatory and allows you to enter up to two sets of opening hours per day (quite useful if your employees have lunch breaks at noon.)

Step 6. Specify payment options. For this example, I will assume our John accepts cash and the major credit cards.

Step 5. Add a picture of your main product, the logo or the storefront. Let’s put up the company logo I used for the Facebook account

Alternatively, you can provide the URL to the image you want to use.

Step 7. Use a video from Youtube, if you have one. I haven’t prepared one for this article, so let’s move on.

Step 8. Finish up by entering additional information in pairs of term: value. A five storied mall could, for instance, use Restaurants: 2nd and 4th floor.

Step 9: Verify your submission. Depending on your area and the number of businesses listed under your phone number, Google can offer you the option of getting verified by phone, text message or postcard. You will get a code you have to fill in your Google account and afterwards your submission will go live.

… and that’s about it. Once you follow these nine easy steps, your business will be listed in Google Places.

Look for a program manager, not just a social media “wiz kid”

Don’t simply hire a social media “hot shot” because he has 100,000 fans on his Facebook page. Make sure that he has the skills to span your entire company and keep up with future expansions. Your new strategist must have a proven record of projects he has maintained, and not just communities he has built. He must understand the needs of your business and work in line with your development plans. It’s important that he not only understands how to build an audience, but how to leverage it appropriately for business purposes.

Record of early adoption of technologies

If the candidate worked for company X as a social media strategist yet only began to use Twitter in 2008, then he is probably not the one you are looking for. You should be looking for pioneers, people who have led daring web initiatives and have embraced new technologies throughout their careers. You need people with a passion for what’s new, because that’s a big part of what social  media is about.

Check how they have used social media in the past

Candidates for a Social Media Strategist position should be authoritative, ethical, able to communicate well and show professionalism. Your new strategist should be a leader, not a follower, and guide your community towards your business goals. Do some screening before the interview, look up their profiles on Twitter and Facebook. Read their personal blogs. See what kind of videos they upload on Youtube. Try to build a psychological profile and see if you the candidate would be a good fit with your organization.

Skilled people are expensive, so budget accordingly

If you can only afford to pay 25 dollars an hour then you will likely have trouble finding someone who can do the job properly. If you want quality, you will have to reach deeper into your pocket. Invest in your Social Media Strategist and you will save more in the long run, a poorly implemented social strategy can actually cost your business money. Due (in part) to the nature of his job, your Strategist will be a dynamic person who always seeks ‘new challenges,’ so you’d better not expect him to lurk in a cubicle and wait for retirement. Reward your Strategist when he meets your business goals and offer him opportunities for promotion, development, and challenge or someone else will.

Look for people who are comfortable with taking risks

A Social Strategist should go beyond his comfort level and take chances. Social Media is a highly innovative field where you can’t be on top if you simply follow a set of guidelines. Your new employee should be comfortable with ‘calculated risks’ and also be able to cope with failure.