Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Photo: General Dynamics Land Systems

Photo: General Dynamics Land Systems

Photo: General Dynamics Land Systems

Google has added another family member to its autonomous vehicle program, and an eagle-eyed reader in Southern California caught the Big G’s Lexus RX450h out and about during testing.

From what we can gather from the image, Google has refined the design of its top-mounted array of sensors, culling things down into a more compact package that’s both smaller and more aerodynamic than those found on its fleet of Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles.

Google began testing its autonomous vehicle program over two years ago under the supervision of Dr. Sebastian Thrun, the director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and a Google engineer who co-invented the Street View mapping service.

Initially, Google ran the program in stealth mode, using six Prius hybrids and one modified Audi TT, later pulling the covers off its skunkworks project in late 2010.

A Google spokesperson tells Wired, “In the course of our work, we experiment with testing our algorithms on various vehicles to help us improve our technology,” and confirmed that the Lexus crossover is part of Google’s expanded fleet.

The spotting of this latest prototype comes just days after California Senate Bill 1298 – which directs the California Highway Patrol to set safety standards and performance requirements for autonomous vehicle testing and operation — passed the Senate Transportation Committee with an 8 to 0 vote before being sent to the Senate Rules committee.

Now that Apple has unveiled iOS 5, the media frenzy surrounding the next version of the iPhone is back with a vengeance.

We’ve written extensively about the yet-to-be-announced device already (proof here, here, here, here, here and here), but we’re not the only ones. There’s a cult-like fascination with Apple product rumors, and that fascination turns into an obsession when it comes to iPhones.

Today’s flurry of iPhone rumors started with a Boy Genius Report story claiming that the iPhone 5 will be a radical departure from the iPhone 4. BGR‘s source told the publication to “expect a radical new case design for the upcoming iPhone,” and that an event to announce the device could come in August.

This report is a departure from the intelligence we’ve gathered thus far on the device. We’ve been told to expect something that looks similar to the iPhone 4, but faster (thanks to the Apple A5 processor) and with a better camera. We’re not the only media outlet that was skeptical of BGR‘s report.

It didn’t take long until Bloomberg decided to publish a report of its own on the iPhone 5, complete with its own set of anonymous source. According to its sources, the iPhone 5 will be introduced in September, have an 8-megapixel camera and include the A5 processor. Bloomberg says that the September release date is meant to coincide with the release of iOS 5.

To put the cherry on top though, Bloomberg also added some juicy tidbits about the iPad 3. Specifically, the news outlet reports that the next-generation tablet will have a one-third higher screen resolution and a “more responsive touchscreen.” Bloomberg also resurfaced old rumors of a cheaper version of the iPhone.

While we think Bloomberg‘s report is accurate, we want to stress this point: only Steve Jobs knows what Apple is planning to do next. Besides, these reports fail to address rumors about the next iPhone having a brushed metal back, NFC technology or a wider screen. We’re much more interested in finding out more about those rumors.

Don’t expect the iPhone 5 rumor mill to to quiet down anytime soon; it’s just getting started.

Social media is maturing as are the people embracing its most engaging tools and networks. Perhaps most notably, is the maturation of relationships and how we are expanding our horizons when it comes to connecting to one another. What started as the social graph, the network of people we knew and connected to in social networks, is now spawning new branches that resemble how we interact in real life.

This is the era of the interest graph – the expansion and contraction of social networks around common interests and events. Interest graphs represent a potential goldmine for brands seeking insight and inspiration to design more meaningful products and services as well as new marketing campaigns that better target potential stakeholders.

While many companies are learning to listen to the conversations related to their brands and competitors, many are simply documenting activity and mentions as a reporting function and in some cases, as part of conversational workflow. However, there’s more to Twitter intelligence than tracking conversations.

We’re now looking beyond the social graph as we move into focused networks that share more than just a relationship.

Bringing the Interest Graph to Life

To demonstrate the value of interest graphs, I worked with the team at ReSearch.ly, a unique Twitter search platform that has indexed the last three years of Tweets to instantly provide a real-time and historical analysis of activity around keywords and also the people that Tweet them.

ReSearch.ly visualizes the interest graph, and also provides the ability to search within the search to sort activity by demographics and psychographics, sentiment, bio data, profession, and the list goes on. Essentially, it’s a product that anyone can use to learn about what’s really taking place on Twitter to better understand behavior and earn greater relevance by making more informed decisions.

As an example of audience profiling or competitive intelligence, we used ReSearch.ly to review the followers of @Starbucks, one of the most celebrated brands actively using Twitter today. We started by extracting 1 million follower profiles, sorted by follower count. The results were then further filtered to include only those who published a complete profile. ReSearch.ly provides the option to then organize the resulting information any number of ways, which in this case, we sorted the accounts by bio, location, and gender.

The Interest Graph

While we are what we say in our Tweets, our bios also reveal a telling side of who we really are. In this study we reviewed the complete bios of 50,000 of the top @Starbucks followers to learn a bit more about how they present their life story as well as their interests, opinions, and preferences.

Using the ReSearch.ly Twitter index, we created a word cloud to amplify the most common words used in each of the bios of these connected social consumers. Followers tended to use expressive words that suggest sentiment runs rich in the Starbucks interest graph. Top words include:

1. Love
2. Life
3. Friends
4. Music
5. World

We can also learn a bit more about Starbucks influencers by analyzing what interests them. Looking a bit deeper into the cloud, we can see that not only do emotions rise to the top; other revealing themes also surface:

1. Family
2. People
3. Mom
4. Wife
5. Husband

This is just the beginning. The words associated with the brands demonstrate the emotional and personal connections Starbucks holds with these tastemakers. Campaigns are a direct beneficiary of such data. As we submerge ourselves one level deeper into the study, we find that this information becomes paramount when we link it to individuals through demographics and psychographics. An import footnote is that the word coffee is among the least used words in the bio, but used nonetheless.

Studying Bio’graphy

With a 50,000-person sample in a traditional research survey, it may be difficult to organize individual responses. Here, we further reviewed each of the bios to find the commonalities in how each person presents who they are in a few precious characters.

Of those, we found that…

- 42 percent expressed strong ties to family, religion, and love

- 29 percent boast special interests, which is further discernible

- 22 percent are professionals who state their current place of employment and position

- 7 percent are students

Additionally, we can extract the attributes of @Starbucks followers further to better symbolize their digital persona. Further review highlights that followers…

- Identify themselves as enthusiasts, geeks, addicts, junkies, creatives

- Define the most popular areas of interest as Music, Food, Coffee, and Fashion

- Potentially favor dogs to cats (2 – 1 as per their mentions)

- Work in either Social Media and Marketing (Note: If we were to change the scale of followers, we would open up the sample to a much broader set of professions)

- Also are still studying. Despite the lower percentage, students account for more than any single professional field

Geo Location: Where in the World is @Waldo?

Brands are more than aware that no one marketing strategy reaches and moves everyone in the same way. Beyond demographic marketing, brands must also focus on driving traffic regionally. Having access to location data isn’t new, but using Twitter as a collective stream of intelligence to identify higher and underperforming locales and associative word clouds allow teams to surface the 3 W’s of real-time geo loco marketing:

Where is negative/positive activity taking place?

Why is it leaning in that direction? And,

What can we do about it?

To give us an idea of where the top @Starbucks followers are Tweeting, we zoomed in to their point of reference. We found that top users tend to Tweet from…

1. California
2. New York
3. Texas
4. Florida
5. Washington

Combining London and UK, we find that The United Kingdom would actually join the ranks of the most often cited cities.

Grouping locations provides a holistic view that provides regional marketing metrics and also areas in need of attention.

Here we can see that the top Tweeps are located in…

- US East, 30 percent
- Non US, 27 percent
- US West, 22 percent
- US Midwest, 21 percent

Tweeting from the Gender Lines

Over the years, I’ve studied the gender makeup of social networks and have consistently found that women outnumber men in some of the most popular networks including Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter, women represent the majority share with 57 percent.

Working with the team here at PeopleBrowsr and ReSearch.ly in conjunction with Klout earlier in 2010, we uncovered en masse, women are more influential than men on Twitter. In fact, the average Klout score within the general Twitter population 34 to 31 in favor of women.

Reviewing Starbucks top followers in ReSearch.ly, it comes as no surprise to see that the women are the predominant source of Tweets, 63 percent women vs. 37 percent men.

The Tweets Have It!: Introducing the Starbucks Brand Graph

The interest graph is defined by connections, but it is brought to life through self-expression. When we combine brand-centric relationships and conversations, the interest graph eventually evolves into what is essentially a brand graph. Within each brand-related graph is a group of highly connected individuals that serve as a company’s network of influence. The ReSearch.ly team extracted 50,000 of the most recent Tweets that included a mention of Starbucks. We then analyzed the connections between people and identified the top 100 individuals and the number of their followers who also mention Starbucks within the 50,000 mentions. We can then bring to light Starbucks influencers as a representation of its brand graph and influential hubs. As we can see, the difference between monitoring and gathering intelligence allows Starbucks to now identify relevant networks and introduce personalized campaigns to further spur advocacy and loyalty.

Here are the top 100 most connected people within the group mentioning Starbucks and the number of their followers also discussing Starbucks:

Accordingly, we can visualize the interest graph as connections, showing how influencers are not only interconnected, but also capable of disseminating relevant information and influencing behavior to varying degrees beyond the traditional reach of Starbucks.  Social consumers and their place within the social consumer hierarchy determine reach and ultimately outcomes. Everything begins however, with recognizing who they are and what inspires or motivates them.

Conclusion

The era of analysis paralysis is officially over. Instead of just listening, companies can now study people and their interests based on what they say and do and also how they color their profiles. This goldmine of insight gives brands the potential to improve marketing, promotional and advertising campaigns to start. What we’re talking about here is the ability to personalize experiences that go beyond demographics and start to employ psychographics and behaviorgraphics – the ability to connect with groups of people by interest and how they interact.

As this practice develops, brands can also gather the intelligence necessary, and widely available, to improve products, services, and spark new waves of tweets gushing with positive sentiment. Doing so over time helps to build the social, and more relevant, business of the future while improving relationships to convert followers into stakeholders.

Brian Solis is the Chief Data Analyst at PeopleBrowsr and ReSearch.ly and author of Engage, the complete guide for businesses to build and measure success in the social web. Follow him on Twitter, @briansolis or read his blog, BrianSolis.com

LivingSocial’s traffic skyrocketed by 80% last week with a little help from Amazon, closing the gap between it and group-buying leader Groupon.

Before last week, LivingSocial had 1/10 of the web traffic of Groupon. Thanks to Google’s $6 billion offer and Groupon’s subsequent rejection of that offer, the deal-a-day service has been experiencing a new wave of growth. The second largest competitor in the space, LivingSocial, experienced an uptick in traffic as well, but nothing as dramatic as Groupon’s rise.

New data from Hitwise Intelligence shows that last week was a major inflection point for LivingSocial, though. It garnered 0.018% of all U.S. visits on the web, an 80% increase from 0.010%. Groupon, on the other hand, actually dropped by 20% to 0.035% market share of U.S. visits.

Why the sudden spike in traffic? The answer’s simple: Amazon. The e-commerce giant made a strategic investment of $175 million in LivingSocial last month to counteract a potential Google-Groupon combination. Last week, LivingSocial offered 50% off of Amazon.com, which resulted in over 1 million Amazon vouchers sold. It was the biggest group-buying deal in history.

With a deal as good as 50% off Amazon, it’s no wonder traffic skyrocketed so fast. However, we bet that when this week’s data comes in, LivingSocial’s traffic will fall back to Earth. Still, the Amazon deal gave LivingSocial a lot of attention and helped it sign up new customers, which could help accelerate its growth and bring it within striking distance of Groupon.

Both companies are about to get some serious competition, though. Google is building its own group-buying service, Google Offers and Facebook is testing a group-buying prototype of its own.

I pay attention to emerging technology and trends on a daily basis. While I track many networks, tools, and services, I take the time to share those that appear to gain traction or offer interesting prospects for tomorrow’s business, today.

Two such services are quickly becoming the darlings of the blogosphere and brands alike, Instagram and Quora. Not a day passes us by where someone isn’t analyzing Instagram’s rise to imaging stardom or Quora’s domination of social engagement around questions and answers. Did the world need another imaging application? Probably not. Do consumers need another question and answer site? Hardly. Instagram and Quora, however, appear to have executed a “thin edge of the wedge” strategy, which is akin to the “tip of the spear” strategy where the services attack a small problem first and then expand once traction and momentum are underway.

Instagram wasn’t the first service to help you share pictures from your mobile device to your social graph. Services such as Twitpic and yfrog connected pictures to the Twitter stream. With Facebook’s mobile app, users could simply upload pictures to their Wall. Instagram however, solved two small challenges with an all-in-one app. It became the focal point of visual sharing. Rather than take a picture and then upload socially through a separate service, Instagram became the dashboard for capturing, editing, and sharing the image without leaving the app. And, Instagram served as an integrated distribution network connecting users to their respective egosystem including, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous, Facebook, and Foursquare. The answer to what’s next lies in the company’s business plan, most likely described as the wedge strategy. Or, the answer could already exist in Quora, the social Q&A network.

Quora seems to baffle the sharpest of the pundits. Essentially it is a question and answer network, not unlike Yahoo Answers or Mahalo Answers. But, the fledgling service solved a couple of problems very well that existing solutions and budding entrepreneurs neglected to see. Much in the same way Foursquare applied game mechanics into geolocation and Facebook introduced the social effect into the News Feed, Quora is designed to engage, challenge, educate and reward its users. But that’s not all. The foundation for the questions and answers are driven by a hierarchy and social ranking, much like Twitter and blogs. The number of followers, following and total mentions is prominent for all to see and judge.

Quora evokes the essence of social capitalism and in the process, introduced a new category of content creators. The system was initially closed, and through a strategic round of private beta invitations, the early rounds of users such as digerati, silicon valley elite, bloggers, celebrities, et al, set the stage for exclusivity as well as focus. Those on the outside wanted in and those on the inside desired recognition. I am not name dropping, but I am making a point. I was introduced to Quora by Ashton Kutcher. And, when I sat down recently to discuss Quora with uber blogger Robert Scoble, his response was as telling as it was validating, Quora is hot because, “all of the cool kids are using it.”

The thin wedge of Quora’s strategy may already have traveled further from the left to the right than Instagram. As new users are invited into Quora, the game mechanics seem to only grow in prominence. People are investing in asking and more so, answering questions to boost social capital in an uncharted and unconquered network where the reward is distinction and stature.

Are Businesses Using Instagram and Quora to #Engage?

If it’s one thing that I’ve learned over the years of studying social media, business, and the pursuit of influence, it’s that we are competing for the moment in order to earn and maintain a semblance of relevance. For businesses struggling to gain traction through Likes, RT’s, comments, clicks, friend and follower counts, the moment for which we compete, never really comes. It is perpetual.

The reality is this, Quora and Instagram are inviting participation among brands as they experiment in earning relevance.

#Quora

While brands are currently not invited to the Quora party, listening and monitoring are important within Quora if it is indeed where your community is asking and answering questions. Like Yahoo Answers and Mahalo Answers, answers to brand related questions are already populating the top of search results in Google.

Brands, if possible, can follow topics related not only to their company, but also their markets. For example, there are hundreds of questions related to Apple in Quora right now, 335 of which are open. If we take a subset of Apple’s business and follow the topic around “tablets,” we would see that our time (defined by any number of tablet manufactures) would yield a great deal of insight.

But why Quora? Robert Scoble eluded to the value of the network earlier. The community as it exists today is rich with influencers. Their perspective is worthy of attention. If for nothing else, insight into the perception and experiences of noteworthy individuals can help inspire future experiences through adaptation.

By the way, if you want to continue the conversation on this topic, it should come as no surprise, that a question already exists…and it’s awaiting your response.

#Instagram

On the other hand, Instagram is already attracting brands into the popular mobile imaging network to help visualize their stories. In November of 2010, National Geographic was amongst the first to demonstrate how a brand’s image could quite literally tie to images within a mobile photo sharing  network bound by imagery.

Since then, CNN, Grammys, NPR, NBC News, Playboy, and Pepsi signed up for Instagram. When Starbucks introduced its new logo recently, the company did not wish to repeat the Gap’s social backlash. Instead, Starbucks shared the logo across the social Web, Instagram included, to seek feedback.

NPR uses Instagram to not only extend the reach of its stories, but also tell stories through modern form of photojournalism. In fact, media certainly has a play here and in any other active imaging network.

To learn more about brands using Instragram, you might want to watch this thread as it unfolds on, you guessed it, Quora.

We’re early on both fronts, but these trends are inciting notable activity on both sides of the brand equation. It’s not just businesses that gain from the intelligence and community within each network, media organizations can also keep their fingers on the pulse of not just new, but also emerging networks that can modernize and reinvigorate news distribution networks.

The networks that gain greatest prominence in these times are those that people choose to support. As such, it is up to businesses and organizations with a story to tell and those with true intentions of community to survey the horizons for the next opportunity to earn relevance.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Researcher Thomas Ryan wanted to demonstrate the vulnerability of social networks, so he created a fictional analyst alter-ego named “Robin Sage.” She was a hot 25-year-old with an MIT degree, a résumé that included a job at the Naval Network Warfare Command, and “over 10 years” of hacking experience (she started at age 14.) She was active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like, and soon had hundreds of friends from the U.S. military, the intelligence community, and security contractor firms. Could her looks have had anything to do with her success in duping them? Well, 82% of her “friends” were male…

World Cup Fever is certainly a pandemic with champions spreading enthusiasm and passion around the world. It’s not only circulating from country to country and person to person, World Cup Fever is also propagating through the social graphs of fans in social networks around the world.

On Twitter, for instance, it is because of the World Cup that a new Tweet record was established. On Thursday June 24th during the Japan vs. Denmark match, 3,282 Tweets flew across the stream every second, beating the previous record by almost 200.

The World Cup is now entering a phase where enthusiasm and passionate conversations will only amplify leading several companies to experiment with social media as a way of harnessing that excitement to earn support, traffic, and relevance through a fusion of creative and engagement.

Coca Cola

As fans take to social networks, brands usually follow. During an earlier round of the World Cup, Coca Cola experimented with Twitter’s new Promoted Trends, a paid variant on “Trending Topics.” Coca Cola’s Global Interactive Marketing Vice President Carol Kruse shared the results with The Financial Times.

“The amount of impressions in such a short period of time around our whole World Cup campaign, to me it was a phenomenal time. It made this emotional connection at the time, it was great.”

In the first 24 hours, Coca-Cola’s Promoted Trend earned 86 million impressions and an engagement rate of 6% compared to approximately 0.02% of people who click on regular online advertisements.

Budweiser

As an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, Budweiser created an extravagant approach to new media, engaging fans across multiple platforms and across several programs. My good friend over at Anheuser-Busch InBev Michael Torres shared details of the program along with supporting data.

BudHouse

Budweiser created BudUnited.com, an original reality series hosted on a customized YouTube brand channel. 32 super fans were selected and flown to South Africa to live in one house and have their team loyalty and passion documented online through a programmed schedule.  As each team is eliminated from the World Cup, the fans follow.

Budweiser is airing 4-6 webisodes daily at roughly 3-5 minutes each. The winner of the BudHouse show will attend the World Cup final and actually present the Man of the Match trophy live on the field on July 11th.

The channel already has already earned over 3.5 million views with an average engagement time of 11 minutes. And, it’s only going to continue to grow as the World Cup intensifies.

Facebook

Budweiser tied YouTube and Facebook through a dedicated Brand Page for BudUnited. However, the appeal for uniting fans on the page was propelled not by liking or conversations, but instead by a introducing a creative face painting application. Indeed, fans can show their true colors through a clever custom Facebook app that adds their favorite colors to their avatar.

The Brand Page is doing extremely well, with over 2.6 million faces painted (1 every second around the world), each status update earning hundreds of comments and the page itself earning almost one million fans in a few short weeks (now known as “likes,” but I think fans is more appropriate here.)

Man of the Match

In a historical move, FIFA has democratized the selection process for the Man of the Match award, allowing consumers to vote online or via SMS.

Andrew Sneyd, Budweiser’s global advertising director commented to ClickZ, “It’s amazing that FIFA has allowed us to democratize the man of the match trophy, and to let the world decide who the best player of any given match is…”

Budweiser is indeed uniting the world around the World Cup with social media bringing everyone together. And it seems to be paying off. According to Hitwise Intelligence, Budweiser tops the Experian Hitwise World Cup Brands index.

The New York Times

The New York Times alerted me via Twitter to an interesting World Cup social media program they’re running. Using Facebook as the platform, the New York Times is tracking the Top World Cup Players using an innovative infographic or infoimagery that changes on a daily basis. As stated on the home page, “Millions of people around the world have been actively supporting – or complaining about – their favorite teams and players.”

Analyzing the volume and frequency of player mentions on Facebook each day, the images change to reflect activity. As such, players are sized according to the number of mentions on Facebook during each day of the World Cup.

Onwards to the Final

As the fervor and emotions run high towards the final match, what’s clear is that the World Cup is doing for social media creative and engagement what the Super Bowl has done for broadcast commercials. Expect to see brands investing in future social media programs that build upon what we see today to score the goals necessary to compete for attention now and in the future.

By Brian Solis: www.briansolis.com

Following is an abbreviated excerpt from Engage, a new book that helps businesses build, cultivate, and measure success in social media.

Last year, Forbes magazine assembled a visual list for its Top 21 Twitter Tips to showcase business examples on how to use Twitter for marketing, service, sales, and ideation. The original compilation served as inspiration for a new list, one that helps businesses of all shapes, sizes, and focus embrace not only Twitter, but all social networks of relevance.
While many of the examples and quotes remain the same, the list is modified based on my observations and personal experiences.

Number 1. Special Offers

People are making decisions on what to read, view, purchase, visit, and sample based on the information that filters through their attention dash- boards. At best, even the most qualified information sourced from the most trusted contacts will receive only a cursory overview. The trick is to concisely introduce the value up front. If the offer is compelling and affiliated with their interests, the consumer will make the connection to personal value and benefits and click-through to redeem the special or coupon when ready or so inclined.

For example, California Tortilla (@caltort), a chain of 39 casual Mexican restaurants based in Rockville, MD, sends coupon passwords via Twitter, which customers must say at checkout to redeem the offer.

Number 2. Ordering

While the distance between introduction and action is only separated by a link, many businesses are using Twitter to log orders. Coffee Groundz (@coffeegroundz) uses the direct message channel on Twitter to receive and prepare orders. Using Twitter as a promotion and marketing channel, Coffee Groundz reports 20 to 30 percent increased sales and market share.

Number 3. Word of Mouth Marketing

Moonfruit offered 11 Macbook Pros and 10 iPod Touches to celebrate its 10th anniversary. In order to qualify, contestants had to send a tweettweet using the hashtag #moonfruit. One month following the completion of the contest, Moonfruit site traffic was up 300 percent and sales also increased by 20 percent—and all because of a meager investment of $15,000. The company also realized SEO benefits, by landing on the first results page on Google for “free website builder.”

Number 4. Conversation Marketing

Zappos (@zappos) doesn’t necessarily market on Twitter; instead, it “unmarkets” via conversations and engagement. At current count, 436 Zappos employees use Twitter, including CEO Tony Hsieh. For the record, Tony has over 1.6 million followers.

Aaron Magness, director of business development at Zappos, acknowledges that proactively sharing the company culture and values creates a humanizing effect that invites people to be part of the community, and also acts as a sales driver. “It’s easier for them to embrace openness,” he said.

Number 5. Customer Service

Frank Eliason of Comcast (@comcastcares) and Richard Binhammer of Dell (@richardatdell) are paving the way for service-focused organizations on Twitter.
Eliason, whose title is director of digital care at Comcast, uses Twitter to help 200 to 300 subscribers a day. Frank and his 10-person help desk receive direct questions, but also proactively seek out complaints. His key to success lies in his desire to earn relations, not bark advice or chat people up. “If they want assistance, they’ll let me know,” he said.

Number 6. Focus Groups

Wisdom and creativity are widespread in social media. Tuning in to the frequency of conversations related to the brand or marketplace can serve as a real-time focus group for innovation and adaptation.

Over 3 million mentions of Starbucks populated Twitter in May 2009 and, as the company learned, the price for paying attention is less than that for a caramel macchiato, but the value is priceless.

Morgan Johnston, Manager of Corporate Communications at Jet Blue, was inspired to change policy because of Twitter. He helped eliminate a $50 fee for carry-on bikes after hearing complaints via Twitter.

Johnston listens to the people who are active on the Social Web in order to improve company processes and customer service. “Think of Twitter as the canary in the coal mine. We watch for customers’ discussions about amenities we have, and what they’d like to see made better.”

Number 7. Direct Sales

Brian Simpson (@BSIMI) has helped The Roger Smith in New York monitor dialogue related to hotel stays and travel in order to offer specials in the hopes of attracting new guests. Using Twitter search, he can identify prospects and offer them a 10 percent discount on the lowest-rate rooms. Simpson estimates that Twitter and other forms of social media have netted between $15,000 to $20,000 in additional revenue.

Simpson also professed the necessity of cultivating community in social networks: “It validates us more when other people talk about us than when we talk about ourselves,” he noted.

Number 8. Business Development

Twitter, along with blogs, blog comments, and other social networks, is abundant with conversations that broadcast and echo dissatisfaction with brands and products. One company’s crisis is another’s opportunity.

Monitoring conversations (social reconnaissance) related to competitors provides the ability to “save the day” with better service or monetary incentives.

Number 9. Curation

I’ve written in the past that Twitter is not necessarily most advantageous when used as a conversation platform. Embracing it as a broadcast channel is also beneficial when used strategically.

For example, Google maintains over 2 million followers, but only follows 230. It employs a strategy that I refer to as a “curation” feed. It compiles links to content and company posts elsewhere and aggregates them into one channel. I recommend that companies use this for information collected from customers and influencers, as well in order to truly curate the best, most helpful content from around the Web while building good will in the process.

However, Twitter accounts can also create and portray a persona around an social objects. For example Albion’s Oven, a bakery in London, notifies followers when fresh croissants are ready.

Number 10. Information Networks

Unlike a curated network that keeps followers in sync with trends, services, and solutions, Information Networks can serve up helpful alerts and notices to help followers avert problems, change plans, and also pursue new opportunities.

The Michigan Department of Transportation uses Facebook and Twitter to alert friends and followers of traffic and road closures. Oakland County Parks uses Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about events and news and also conducts polls to improve local programs and services.

In business, customers could also benefit from updates and alerts that they might not have otherwise have encountered on their own.

Number 11. Dedicated and Branded Channels

On Twitter, Ford Motor uses distinct accounts for sharing information about specific models and products. For example, @forddrivegreen focuses on sustainability, whereas @fordmustang, well, you guessed it, shares content related to the Mustang.
Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford, recognizes that social media reveals the people who formerly comprised the audience: “We give customers a choice as to how they want to consume information.”

Whole Foods maintains independent channels, as well, to better serve customers. For example, the healthy foods retailer channels specific information and updates for wine and beer, cheese, and recipes.

Number 12. Mobile and Geo Location Marketing

Local businesses are using social tools to identify customers within the area to attract new business and also extend the online interaction into a full-blown community in the real world. Because I was there when this story was just about to unfold, I will reference my good friend Mike Prasad and the great work he’s done for Kogi, a mobile force of Korean BBQ taco trucks @kogiBBQ.

One night in Hollywood, Mike and I were talking about getting a late night snack. He told me about the company he was working with and how if we sent a tweet out requesting their presence, there was a good chance that they’d stop by the neighborhood to serve us dinner. Thirty minutes later, Kogi was indeed outside our hotel and a group of about 25 to 30 people immediately began proclaiming their appreciation for on Twitter.

Prasad echoes this sentiment and is helping to lead the way: “We try to foster a culture by interaction with the people around us. Now, Kogi isn’t about getting a taco, it’s about having an experience.”

Expect to see this trend continue in mobile social networks dedicated to locale and accessible via mobile phones.

Number 13. Hosted Conversations That Generate Traffic and Referrers

Social Media Dashboards are the future of hosted and aggregated conversations. As we’re observing, those sites that integrate Twitter chat functionality can not only thread conversations in one place for easy following, but also send out tweets in the Twitter stream for all followers to see, and hopefully feel compelled or curious to join, as well.

During the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, Turner Broadcasting integrated Twitter into TNT.com with the help of Gigya. Visitors could log into the site with their Twitter ID and respond directly in the hosted timeline. As such, their tweets not only appeared on TNT.com but also in Twitter, attracting more fans into the site.

Number 14. User-Generated Change

As we’ve seen and will continue to see, in social media tiny online social revolutions can manifest and ultimately ignite change.

Historically, the 2009 Iran Election will serve as an inflection point for the rise of user-generated change. While the results of election itself weren’t altered, the Iran government was forced to respond.

Two services mentioned in the Forbes Top Twitter Tips article, Twitition and TinyPetition, are dedicated to organizing people on Twitter to call for change officially.

Number 15. Vendor Relationship Management

A form of relationship management introduced by Cluetrain Manifesto author Doc Searls, Vendor Relationships Management (VRM) flips the workflow of CRM (customer relationship management) from companies to customers.

Whereas people are relegated to faceless customers when e-mailing or calling into the service department, social media takes the power once held exclusively by the brand and injects balance.

UK-based Wiggly Wigglers, a marketer of farming and gardening supplies, was surprised to learn that British Telecom overcharged the company by $10,000. After five months of a stalemate and without any promise or hope of resolution, company owner Heather Gorringe took her story to the Twitterverse. Within 30 minutes, @BTCare responded with help and two days later, the bill was adjusted.

Number 16. Ideation

As we’ve witnessed with My Starbucks Idea (http://mystarbucksidea. force.com) and Dell’s IdeaStorm (www.ideastorm.com), crowdsourcing ideas can not only be an excellent source for innovation, but also an effective means for establishing goodwill.

IBM uses Twitter to test concepts and solicit feedback and ideas through @ibmresearch.

Number 17. Employee Recruitment

Recruiters and hiring managers are turning to Twitter to seek referrals and applicants for open positions. Twitter and social networks can spark a social effect that galvanizes community support and action. Not only can companies save a significant amount of money on listing and referral fees using traditional outlets and resources, they essentially create a presence through the practice of “unmarketing” itself through the process of seeking qualified candidates.

Number 18. Events

Organizing and promoting events are natural applications for Twitter. Tweetups transcend online relationships and become real-world connections.

Using Coffee Groundz as an example again, the Houston-based business regularly organizes tweetups to draw hundreds of customers into the store for each event.

Number 19. Research and Intelligence

The Social Web is a real-time collective and assembly of valuable information that mostly goes unnoticed. A few existing services are dedicated to applying a magnifying lens into the dialogue that leads to insight, direction, creativity, and inventiveness.

For example, celebrity.peoplebrowsr.com provides real-time insight into the most actively discussed celebrities on Twitter at any moment in time, while also revealing the sentiment that is most associated with each. If you notice at the top, you can also view the latest on Airlines industry or stock market sentiment and associated tweets.

StockTwits provides an open, community-powered idea and information service for investments. Users can listen to traders and investors, or contribute to the conversation. The service leverages Twitter as a content production platform and transforms tweets into financial related data structured by stock, user, and reputation.

Number 20. Fund Raising

This is a big opportunity and one that will yield amazing stories on how people are using Twitter and social media to raise money for charitable causes and capital for projects and companies. It’s the art of spurring contributions through information and education, not solicitation.

When it comes to social media for Social Good, we don’t have to look much further than anything Beth Kanter touches or spotlights. She’s one of the most influential people in using social media for raising awareness, support and money for causes. One of the projects that she remains dedicated to is helping orphans in Cambodia and, to date, it has raised over $200,000. She has also used Twitter, Widgets, and other social networks to help many other organizations and causes. In one live demonstration, which still leaves me in awe, she raised over $2,500 to send a young Cambodian woman to college while she was on stage at Gnomedex in Seattle.

Number 21. Words of Wisdom

As reiterated throughout these top tips, listening and responding is helpful and efficacious in luring new customers, empowering advocacy, and instilling loyalty.

Serving as a resource for your community or industry positions, proactively responding to online users who are posing questions, and assisting those who are seeking advice and guidance can garner trust, respect, and camaraderie for you and the causes you espouse.

There are measurable and also incalculable benefits to dedicating resources to lead individuals and organizations to resolution.

For example, @homedepot monitors dialogue related to the company, but also those individuals who are tackling home projects and seeking tips and instructions.

BestBuy’s @Twelpforce has authorized its entire staff of trained employees to seek out discussions related to consumer electronics, home theaters, gaming, music, appliances, and technology, and to answer questions, whether or not they’re directly tied to the BestBuy brand.

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