A few months back I attended a session at a social media conference about QR codes.  I’m not going to mention the conference or the speaker because actually, the presenter was entirely incorrect on one major point they made.  The presentation was on the value of QR Codes, how to use them, why you’d use them and highlighting some customized ones.  Overall the content was pretty good – BUT – the big flaw in the presentation was that the speaker said that QR code activity is not trackable.  That is entirely not true.  They are trackable, and you don’t need some high-end application to do it.

If you don’t understand QR Codes, here are some basics.  A QR Code is similar to a bar code in that it translates pixels into data.  Basically, a QR Code stores a URL (or web address).  Any smart phone or mobile device can scan these codes (with use of a free mobile app) and is then served up content from a website. They are often used to promote events, products, special discounts, and in the example of print ads, they can give the advertiser a quick and easy way to offer more info beyond the quarter-page ad they may have purchased in a magazine.  The QR Code adds another layer to the advertisement that doesn’t cost tons of money.  There are many many uses for them, but people still question them.

But here’s the thing.  If they don’t cost a ton of money, and you CAN track them, why would you not experiment with them?  You could be missing out on something, an audience perhaps, that is more kinesthetic (hands on learners) and loves a good mystery.  I love to scan QR Codes because you just don’t know what’s at the other end. Sometimes there is a “secret” promotion! Consumers love to feel like they got something special that others did not get…

If you run any sort of web analytics on your website, then you have what you need to track the use of QR Codes.  Am I giving away a big trade secret now?  I don’t think so…  If you are building a QR Code, it is URL based – remember we talked about that.  So – if you want to track your QR codes that are out there in print and on walls, etc… create unique landing pages for them.  Did I blow your mind?  Create a new page that is ONLY sending traffic to your website from scanning of a QR Code.  That way when you look at your content page views in analytics you can see how many times they were scanned.

Take it a step further – test custom codes, placement, promotions, and more by creating unique landing pages for each iteration.  That way you can compare one against the other.  For example you may advertise in Food Network Magazine and Cuisine at Home Magazine (my two favorites) and you may run QR codes in both.  If you use the exact same code in both that perhaps sends your users to your website home page – you can’t really track which is sending you more traffic.  If, however, you create unique landing pages for each ad in the different magazines, you can determine which is the better advertising spend based on response as shown in your analytics.

But… make sure your QR Code landing page is compelling.  If you don’t, chances are your visitors will not scan your QR codes in the future, for fear they will be bored to tears, or they won’t expect to find anything of value at the other end of the code.

They are a relatively low cost way to add a new layer to your marketing.  And at the end of the day, they are completely trackable if they are implemented properly.

Want more info on how to get custom QR Codes and landing pages? You know what to do…

I confess – I’ve been too “digital” – up until now.  The following questions has been running through my mind over and over:  How will I do social media differently in 2012? That is such a loaded question.  What I’m realizing matters most, is the value I place on relationships. Quality – not quantity.  I think many of us, as we jumped on the social bandwagon in the last several years, have looked at numbers.

• How many Twitter followers can I amass?
• What’s the size of my network on LinkedIn?
• How many people want to be my friend on Facebook?
• What is my Klout score?

Those same statements can be said about any of the social network sites.  I’ve been really thinking about what I need to do differently this year to really grow relationships that matter to me, and seek out new ones.  I love “people.”  I love the word “social.”  Those two words play so well together, if done sincerely.  So this year I must confess… I need to be more of me, more personal, and less worried about the numbers.

Here are few random thoughts that got me to this point:

Twitter: As I thought about my followers and who I follow, I had to admit to myself that I have not spent nearly enough time paying attention to who was following me, and even asking myself why they would.  And along the same lines, who am I following that I gain value from their content and/or have developed a personal relationships with – or want to develop a relationship with.  So at the risk of losing thousands of followers, I am setting out on a journey to really look at each and every person I follow, get them on a list and figure out who they really are.  (I unfollowed over 700 yesterday, and will continue to clean house.)

If I have unfollowed you, and you feel we should remain connected, please tweet me.  I’d love to hear from you, and perhaps reconnect.

FourSquare: This is an interesting one.  I love Foursquare, and truth be told, I will probably continue using it – but I have cut way back.  My husband and I were competing for points and mayorships, as we do in Yahtzee and Scrabble – we compete – aggressively… It gets ugly.  But my husband is very wise and made a keen observation.  If we are going out to dinner, or church, or to the store – Foursquare has a definite impact on our experience.  If we are nose down to the mobile device trying to be the first to check-in or fighting for the mayorship – we are losing out on relational experiences.  If I am fighting with my Android, I’m certainly not holding my husband’s hand, and we are not taking in the sights and sounds around us.  So we have stopped that competition.

I will continue to use Foursquare, but more for outings like RocPeepsLunch, and a true desire to share my location for a reason – not just to let the world know where I went for lunch.  Though you may see my NASCAR check-ins.  Those are just fun – and we are headed to Daytona soon.

Facebook: I haven’t gone the route of cleaning house on Facebook yet.  I have not started removing “friends” – but I’m seriously considering it. The number of friends I have on Facebook does not equate to value.  I’m not going to mass-delete people, but what I am finding is that because I have a large number of friends, I am missing out on things that people are posting.  I often hear people talking about something that I knew nothing about, and when I speak up they say – “I posted it on Facebook, didn’t you see it?”  The reality is, my newsfeed is filled up with so much stuff, I often miss things.  I’ve used some of the new features for filtering and labeling friends, and I don’t like them.  (Personal opinion)

I do get a lot of value out of the business content I see posted on Facebook, and I really enjoy connecting with people personally, so this year I need to find some balance there.  I haven’t yet decided what that will look like – but it’s on my radar.   I think my Facebook Timeline layout is a good representation of me and what matters… I put a lot of thought into it as I pieced together my headline image in Photoshop.  I intend to stay true to that this year and strike a balance with my social business network.

Hand-crafted and hand-written notes.

The Power of Personal: What really got me here? A friend of mine who sends out only hand-made cards. She sends out Christmas, Birthday, and “just because she want’s to send you a note” cards.  I even got a hand-made Halloween card!  Who sends out Halloween cards?  (I loved it!)  These cards keep coming in the mail, and with each one I receive, I am more grateful for the personal touch.  These hand-made cards with… wait for it… hand-written notes… have reminded me of the importance of personal touch in relationships.  Checking the mail these days can be no fun.  Bills and junk mail (and at election time OYE) – but when there is the thought I might receive something personal, it adds some new anticipation. When I actually DO receive something personal, it touches my heart.  And while she is a friend, and not a business associate – she has taught me a very valuable business lesson.

So I confess that I have lost focus on what has mattered most to me in my professional life as a Social Media Manager.  I’ve been successful with social media marketing, but I think that this year I will evolve into something new and better.  This year I will narrow my focus and work to build more value in my relationships.  I will work to re-kindle old relationships that have fallen dormant, and will spend time seeking out new ones.

I will also be more true to my Twitter bio – which means more artichoke tweets  :)

PS.  I’ve decided I don’t care about my Klout score!  If you find value in the things I say, you’ll follow me.  If we’ve established a relationship, you’ll follow me.  Not because of some random number, based on an algorithm that frankly, just does not matter.  There I said it!

The Coveted Chef.

A few years back my family launched an annual competition for the coveted chef trophy shown here.  We all make a dish to bring to the home of the parental units, and they are served blind with festive names given to each (usually after the 8 reindeer ).   The food is served up, we eat and eat some more, and then we vote on our top 3 favorites of the dishes served.

If you know anything at all about me, you probably know that I love artichokes, and am working through the process of putting together an artichoke cookbook with a collection of my personal recipes.  You also know that I share this love with roughly 5,000 others on Facebook.

A week before the gathering, I realized I had not given any thought to what I would prepare for this event.  My family is highly competitive – although I’ll tell you I think last year my brother won unfairly.  Who doesn’t love chocolate fondue, especially when you count the votes of the children present?  Kids and chocolate – that’s like buying their votes!  Melt chocolate, cut fruit – hardly seems fair.  I think he was heckled so much last year for winning, that this year he did bring his A-Game and made a clam chowder that was out of this world.

Artichoke Bread Pudding

Anyway – this year I was stuck.  And just a week go I was invited to join Pinterest, which at first I could not see the point of.  I started pinning a few things I liked, and as I began to follow a few people I was starting to see some really interesting images that captured my attention and got me thinking.  I did a search on Pinterest for Artichokes, and not only did I find some unique products and beautiful photos, but some recipes too!  The first one I tried was Artichoke Bread Pudding.  Shown here is the result (my actual finished dish).  Mine actually looks as good as the image shown on the recipe itself!  It was like artichoke stuffing on steroids.  The only problem was that it didn’t make enough to go around for this family gathering, so I had to go back and find a different recipe.

Back on Pinterest, I looked for artichoke dishes, and found a handful that looked really good.  I was torn between a lemon artichoke soup, an artichoke hummus, and artichoke cakes with a cajun rémoulade.  I repinned all of these selections so I could find them in an instant when I needed them, and sought out my husband to make the final selection.  He settled on the artichoke cakes with cajun rémoulade.

With no time left to spare, I did not have time to do a dry run of this recipe.  It was the day of the event, and had to be perfect.  We worked as a team.  I made the artichoke cakes, my husband made the rémoulade.  We did kick it up a notch to make both components a bit spicier than intended, but oh my gosh was it major yummy.  So we finished it up, packed up the components of our dish, loaded the kids in the car and off we went.

Now I should tell you that two of the entries this year were entirely store bought – one was cheesecake and the other a cheese spread – both which were delicious, but should not have been eligible for any votes.  Seriously!

Well it did not matter, our dish took home the coveted trophy with 24 points. Second place received 12 points, which was my brothers clam chowder – a worthy opponent.  But I have to thank Pinterest for providing me a simple way to find recipes and information that I am passionate about and easily share it with others!

I definitely see some business cases for a tool such as this to create content and related links in a visually appealing and easy to organize way.  Things get repinned and make they way viral, and hopefully drive some web traffic.  Where small business use sites like Flickr or just their web site for a visual portfolio of their products or services, Pinterest could add a whole new flavor to that, and potentially reach a whole new audience.

I am a lover of infographics also, and often I find one I love, and then can’t find it when I need it.  Now I can pin them to one board and go back and reference them at a moments notice.  Pretty slick.

The “Pin it” button is installed on my browser toolbar, making it easy and fun to add things to my “boards” (or categories to which I share things on Pinterest.  I’m working on a more practical business use for myself, but in the meantime am having fun exploring the ways others are using it.

I am sure Pinterest will evolve in the coming months or year.  I plan to be there to see it unfold.  This year, I hope to complete my artichoke cookbook, and if you like, you can follow along with me on Pinterest as I work through it with images and comments about things I’m tasting and trying.

If you are a networker, like me, you check your LinkedIn account analytics regularly.  You like to be “in the know” about who is looking at your profile, and perhaps locate new professionals you’d like to connect with for one reason or another. Today in my travels on LinkedIn, I was doing my usual checking…

I went in to see who had viewed my profile in the last week, and how I was showing up in search results and how often.  If you aren’t familiar with that, it’s available to free LinkedIn users with minimum statistics – but you click on the link at the right (shown here with the big red arrow).  Premium linked users can also get more analytics about search results, keywords, etc.

So anyway – there I was checking out who had viewed my profile, and I discovered what I thought was a spammer on LinkedIn.  I know it happens, but it often catches me off guard, the fake accounts on LinkedIn.  Much easier to get away with on Facebook, not so much on LinkedIn.

Snow E. Mann on LinkedIn

There I find that Snow E. Mann has viewed my profile, and I stop dead in my tracks.  Wait a minute.  LinkedIn is allowing fake names now?  I actually got banned from Google+ for a long time for using my real name, which they thought was a fake name, but is really my name… and here LinkedIn is allowing this crazy name?  Seriously?  It was about to change my perception of LinkedIn.

This Snow E. Mann is an “Independent Consultant” no less… of course, spam, sales… it all makes sense.  I’m getting ready to report this imposter the LinkedIn police.   I am so done!  I’m off to get more info, do some research, find out what I can, so I click on Snow E. Mann to view the fake profile… and what do I get?

A complete shock… that’s what I get.  And to all of you at LinkedIn, I say Well Done!  Well Done!  (And Happy Holidays to you too!)

This was the very last thing I expected.  When I think of this particular social networking, I don’t think fun or festive… I don’t really think in terms of adding personal touch either, but this was good.  Very good.

While I was at DMA in Boston back in October, I signed up for a subscription to the print edition of The Social Media Monthly magazine.  The hook was a social media case study book I wanted, so I signed the dotted line and waited for my book to come in the mail.  Admittedly, the book came and I completely forgot about the magazine I had subscribed to… until yesterday.

Upon getting the mail I came across my first issue of The Social Media Monthly magazine.  As I’m reading it now I have some thoughts I’d like to share about my experience with this print-edition social media publication.  Mind-you, these are my opinions mixed up with some general observations about this new magazine.

My first observation… It’s a print magazine. A friend noted on Facebook this morning that it seemed odd to have a social media magazine in print.  At first, his comment made me stop and think that perhaps it did seem odd… But… as I sat down to read the magazine I found myself grateful that it was a print magazine, for a couple of reasons.

1)  There is something special about print publications.  I still love to read books.  I have the Kindle software on my iPad, and yet, I’ve only downloaded and read one book on it in 6 months time.  I prefer to hold a book in my hands and smell the pages.  There is just something about a book or magazine in print that improves the experience.

2)  Having the magazine in hand gave me a chance to actually disconnect.  Since I “do” social media professionally, I am not often disconnected from the online world.  I actually set aside time today to walk away from my computer and set aside my phone to read and absorb the articles.  When I’m reading blogs online, I often get distracted by incoming tweets, emails and Facebook notifiers – so this was a nice break.

My second observation… The articles are actually good! Yes, in truth, I was surprised.  I was worried that the stories might be old news by the time they hit the stands – but the writers were able to take current or past stories and put an interesting spin on them related to trends, technology and social channels.  I won’t spill all about the articles in the November, 2011 issue, but I have enjoyed reading them.  They covered a breadth of topics from food to radio to physical fitness and yet they all related to social media.  It was not just one page after the other about how to develop a strategy or how to measure.  I found useful information to help generate ideas for new uses of social channels.  My favorite this month… “Confessions of a Foursquare Addict.”  Why?  Because I could relate!

My third observation… A lot of QR Codes! Admittedly, I said above that I disconnected from the world to sit and read this edition of The Social Media Monthly, but I have to tell you my iPad was right next to me with my QR scanner fired up and ready to go.  Why?  Because I took the time to scan each and every QR code in the magazine to learn as much as I could about how people are using them (and perhaps get some great content). There were 22 QR codes in the roughly 60 page publication.  A few were duplicates to promote readership of the new magazine (it’s all good).   Others were advertisements for products and services, and my favorite was for a free download.

What I thought was interesting was that some were poorly placed inside their ads. Even if you didn’t know which side of the print publication your ad would appear on (left or right), wouldn’t you place your QR code in a place within your ad that would be suitable for either?  I had to press down on the fold of the magazine for one or two to get them to scan (not good placement).  That is not at the fault of the magazine, but rather the ad designers.  I would venture to guess if they are tracking the number of scans, they may revisit their ad layout in the future.

I also found it interested that only one of the codes was customized at all, and the extent of the customization was that it was colored blue.  The rest were just the plain old black and white QR code.  Don’t advertisers know you can transform the appearance of QR codes to make them fun and inviting?  The one shown here is for a local village to promote traffic to their website, and it plays on some key landmarks in the village to give you a sense of what might be behind the QR code.  I’d be much quicker to scan this one, than a boring old black-and-white one.  Wouldn’t you?

So… as I wrap up my thoughts about this first (my first) issue of The Social Media Monthly magazine, I will tell you that I am very pleased, and that the magazine exceeded my expectations.  I got to disconnect for a time, really focus on the content and found myself looking forward to next month’s issue.  I would recommend it to a friend (and no, I’m not getting any referral kick-backs from TSMM magazine – I’m just spreading some love)

There is an iPad edition available (which I learned from one of the QR codes).  When I originally subscribed, I had asked about that, and it was not yet available.  And in hind-sight I am glad.  Now I get to take a time-out from my computer and sit and read the magazine, save the articles, highlight, make notes and yes, smell the pages in print.

Ever notice when you click to share something on Facebook and it sometimes doesn’t display an image?  Does that make you as crazy as it makes me?  Or, sometimes it gives 20 thumbnails to choose from, but the one image you want to share is not one of the thumbnails you can choose from.  Well… here’s my helpful tip of the week!

If you are website builder, and take social sharing seriously – take the time to select which image you want associated with a given page when sharing socially.  Let’s review.

The following page is a gallery page of an Angry Birds Theme Cake (pretty slick cake too if you ask me!).

I want to share this to Facebook!

If I just add the sharing code without specifying the image, it actually displayed no image whatsoever.  Frustrating right?!?  Especially when the thing you want to share is all about the visual appeal!  The ShareThis tool (like many other social sharing tools) pulls the link title (display text) from your code META Title (so word it carefully).  But the image thumbnail also needs to be specified.  To do that you simply need to add a snippet of code in your header.  Here’s an example:

<link rel=”image_src” href=”images/angry_birds_theme_cake_1.png” />

That one simple tag will then pull that image and display it when someone shares your page to Facebook giving it more appeal and promoting further sharing.

By taking a few extra minutes to think through which image will best represent your page, you are creating a more socially appealing experience for the person sharing, and for their social networks.  It also stands to reason that the content you’ve shared will be shared again and again!

Hope this information helps!  Go get social!

I love infographics… This one from Marketo give some great info on Content Marketing.  At a quick glance, it gets your brain juices flowing about why you might consider content marketing a viable part of your marketing mix.

Some takeaways:

• 51% of companies interviewed in this study said they use a blog for content marketing. Are you blogging about your business, your products, your services, your customers and your knowledge areas?
• 55% of companies interviewed are providing case studies as part of their marketing content strategy. If you can demonstrate the success of your product, it makes it much easier to buy.
• 43% of companies interviewed are writing white papers and sharing them online as part of their marketing content strategy.  You already know your business, and chances are people are looking for the knowledge you have.  White Papers are a great way to spread some love.  You don’t need to charge for them, your visitors and downloaders will thank you for that by coming back to your site over and over.

Not suprising the biggest challenges most companies face in content marketing:

• They are concerned they are not providing the right type of content or value
• They are concerned they are not producing enough content.

I got a few other interesting nuggets out of it, but have a look for yourself – click on it to view the enlarged version on Marketo’s website.

Click to view the original enlarged version.

Search Engine Optimization – or SEO – is a sought after service with the rise in social media and the value of marketing online.  Companies will seek to hire someone to “do SEO” on their website to increase visibility in the major search engines.  The realization that you have admitted you need some help with search engine ranking is a great start – however, when I talk to people about what SEO really entails, often times they either don’t understand it, or don’t want to hear it.

The problem with not accepting these two major truths about SEO, is that if you don’t believe them – and then hire someone to “do SEO” for you, you will never be happy and you will feel like you’ve been ripped off.  But the reality is that you have to seriously consider Search Engine Optimization as an investment of time and dollars into the success of your online presence.

The two truths about SEO that people seem to ignore are this:

You don’t just “do SEO” once and then Voila!

Search Engine Optimization is a process.  Let’s suppose a company comes to you and wants you to “do SEO” on their website.  And let’s also suppose that website has about somewhere between 8-10 pages of content.  You could just “do SEO” on that website by improving meta titles, meta descriptions and meta keywords.  You could also create optimized naming conventions for images and downloadable files, as well as alt-tags.  On top of that you could review the site content with a fine-toothed comb and make improvements to the language that are more search-relevent.

So let’s suppose you did these things to your customer’s website and sent them on their way. Technically, yes… that site has been optimized and could potentially improved it’s search rank – but here’s the reality…

Unless that company has such a niche product that no-one else is writing about online, chances are even if they do get rank on the newly optimized website – that rank will probably only last a short time.  As the competition continues to blog and post regular content, it provides tremendous value to their search rank, and with each new piece of content published about your product or service (that was not published by your customer because they maintain an 8-10 page static website only), they stand to lose search rank.

Your static website will not hold it’s position.  You need to be adding content regularly that is relevant to your business, and meets the needs of your customer and potential buyers.  Blogging is an excellent way to do this, and provides you an outlet to open dialogue with customers and prospects – while providing real value beyond a 10 page static website.

The second truth is this…

It’s takes time to gain organic search position…

Assuming you understand the first truth, know this… A solid SEO strategy takes time to implement because it’s about building content on an ongoing basis indefinitely.  You cannot expect that you’ve added 5 new pages of content to your website, and Google will automatically crawl your site and decide to throw you up on page one above all those who are publishing content regularly and are doing it well.

It is a process.  I tell clients to expect NOT to see any results for MONTHS.  This is the reality people, and anyone who tells you differently does not speak honestly with you.  This is not to say you need to keep someone in your employ for months on end and spend tons and tons of money.  You can hire someone to get you rolling, teach you the ropes and make sure you are equipped with the means to continue publishing content on your own.

When I run search rank reports, I only check them every two months.  Search rank fluctuates daily. I focus on long-term growth, not daily position – and you should too.

Monitoring keywords, top content, and referring sites can give you additional knowledge as to which keywords are performing best, and which might need some love in the way of additional content.

So.. if you are seeking an SEO professional – don’t focus on big magical promises.  Work with someone who will really provide long-term strategy for content development.  Hire someone who will not talk in buzz words but will take the time to really help you understand the types of content you should develop and the best way to go about it.

You’ll be much happier in the long-run, if you can be patient and trust the process.

Today I spoke at Biz Buzz Social Media Conference in Syracuse – and while I competing with a very popular session – I still had a great time, we talked about great content, and I got some great feedback.

Here’s the deck I shared today that gives a high level overview of how to plan content for a blog, why you should have one, and what to blog about.

I love my friends, you do too.  But sometimes you just need to block things out of your Facebook news feed, for whatever reason.  Facebook has evolved over the years, and has recently introduced some nice features that allow you to target your status updates to specific people and thus not publishing every single thing to the news feed for the world to see… but… not everyone is using that feature.

So if you are looking to block a single post, or even block all posts from a particular person in your Facebook “friends,” here is how you do it:

"Hide This Post"

Start by running your mouse over the upper right hand corner of the specific update in your news feed you’d like to block.  A little “x” will appear, and when you click on it you’ll get the drop down shown here.  If it’s spam, you can report it, but in this case we accept it’s from a friend, but just want to block it from our feed.

Once you’ve opted to “Hide this post”, the post will disappear from your news feed.  At this point you can undo the block, hide all posts by that particular friend, or remove them from your friends altogether.

Undo, Hide All, or Unfriend. The choice is yours.

If you decide you do want to block all future news feed posts for that person, click the “Hide all by…” link.  You will get confirmation that states:

“Posts from ________ will no longer appear in your News Feed.  Edit News Feed Options.”

Either you are done, and you want to go back to whatever you were doing before this post appeared in your feed and you decided you needed to block it… Or you can take a look at your overall preferences for your News Feed Options and look at who you are already blocking, what applications are being blocked and more.

Hope this helps!  Happy Faceblocking!