Justin Taylor

Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

I hate it when I get emails or see programs trying to sell something to businesses, especially the Internet Market crowd and they misinterpret the data.  There are so many people out there trying to capitalize on the fact that Facebook get as much traffic as they do.  Of course Facebook has a tremendous amount of traffic.

Do not delude yourself into thinking that Google will be replaced by Facebook.

Before you begin to take stock in all the hype about how Google is dying or dead and you must position yourself, so you will not see the death of Google… ask yourself a few questions:

How is that traffic counted, that you see in the stats they show?

How many of those people are actually searching for your business or the products and services that you offer?

How many of them are searching for anything other than their friends and family and photos?

The truth is, most of them are not searching for a single thing.  People do not go to Facebook to find an eBook or to look for an iPod or to read reviews on the latest droid gadget.  The fact is people go there to socialize and communicate with their friends and family.  They go to share personal information.  Then a certain percentage go to Facebook to play games, while a few people (as in a certain percentage) use it for business.  Then there are those that refuse to click on any ads, because it is not a search tool.

Anyone who tells you Google or Bing or the principles behind a Search using a Search Engine is dead, really has no idea how those search engines really work.  They have no idea how people who do the searches use them either.  Mostly throughout this article, I am going to refer to Google more than other search Engines.

A couple of reasons why are Yahoo has yet to do anything new in the market and if I remember correctly, just before MSN Search became Bing, Yahoo was using the MSN search engine to run it’s own algorithms.  Although Bing, may be a player in the search engine game, they too are not the one that many marketers and advertisers talk about most when referring to search.  They have been gaining more and more market share, which suggests that they will be a player for a long time to come.

But my personal belief is they get a lot of their traffic via their other paid products.  The diehard Microsoft OS crowd and the new users that buy a PC for the first time and use the default settings, which are Internet Explorer and Bing Search.  I believe that like Google and Bing will be around for quite a while as search engines.

Then there really are no other dominate search engines to compare.

So let’s look at a few other facts:

• First, we must recognize that social media really is growing and no going anywhere.  To that end, these marketers are not mistaken.  Today, YouTube (a Google property) is the #4 search engine.  Yes, that supports the claim that perhaps social media is taking over and Search Engines may have met their match.  YouTube may be a social networking site, but as mentioned, it is also a Google Owned property, it uses Google search algorithms and the reason YouTube is not the #1, #2 or #3 Search Engine is, because it is not designed to only be a search engine.  Not everyone searching on the Internet is looking for videos when they go online to find something.  In fact, some people do not even watch TV, so why search for more videos online.  Plus, there are plenty of people that barely have a handle on how to even use Google search or Bing as it is.  How many people do you know, that really know how to properly use any search engine?  How many people do you know that even understand how to use Boolean search terms or even what that means?

• Second, Google loves video.  Not only YouTube video, but other kinds of video too.  This is one way that Google ranks and finds relevant material.

• Third, Google gains a tremendous amount of traffic through the free tools they have available.  This will continue to drive the relevance and usefulness of how consumers view Google.

• Fourth, Google loves social media and even has one of it’s own, known as Google Buzz.  But the true potential of this tool has yet to be completely known or understood by most users, as it has not yet been completely integrated into all of Googles other properties.   There is also Google Friend Connect and integration with YouTube and the open source nature of Google‘s API’s, as well as the integration with OpenID.  So whatever you do, do not discount Google as a dominant player in the Social Media market just yet.

• Fifth, Google is a debt free company, with a ton of extra money in the bank.  How many social media companies can say that?  Facebook has yet to become profitable.  Twitter is much the same, they are still in the Red.  As each of the now existing big social media giants works to catch up financially with Google, Google will continue to build and perfect it’s Google Buzz.

It is clear that everyone should be using social media and that means learning to capitalize as much as you can on Facebook and Twitter today.   But another question you may want to ask yourself is how much stock do you want to put into any one single social media website.   Look at MySpace, at one time it was one of the biggest social media sites on the net.  But today it has lost must of it’s luster.

The beauty of a Search Engine is, it is not dependent on the whims of the people (i.e. doing what is trendy or whatever the current FAD might be) and it does not depend on the success of failure of one social network.   Even if Google Buzz fails or never picks up, Google has plenty of other properties and plenty of other ways they can stick with their company mission.

Google is dependent on maintaining proper algorithm’s in order to create relevant results and it is dependent on continuing to create an audience, which businesses will pay to reach.  As long as they do that, Google will always have relevance in the marketplace and people will continue to use it predominantly as a tool to find what they want.

So do not let the fear mongers convince you that the writing is on the wall and Google is on it’s way out.  Do not let them convince you that you must change all your business over today and you need to buy some program to teach you how, because the proof is in the stats of page visits or usage.

Whenever anyone says that, look deeper into what the results really say and think about how people are using the networks mentioned.  Then you will have a much clearer picture, that is not marred by your emotions or even a little bit of naivety, that you might not want to admit you have.

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Sometimes you get lucky and you find some pretty cool programs online. Well, today I found Sumo Paint, which is a program that is 100% online and in the cloud.

When it comes to graphic programs, There is of course the leader of all the different software programs, Adobe and all of it’s different renditions. Of course nearly every style of software that comes from Adobe has a fairly pricey and it needs to be installed on your computer. You are limited on how many computers you can install it on and you are also limited on which OS you can use, based on what you purchase. So if you have several computers, different OS’s or you happen to want to or need to use someone else’s computer and they do not have Adobe installed, then you are stuck without any software and can do nothing.

Then you have GIMP, which is an open source program, that is very useful and a great alternative to Adobe Photoshop. But again, you are limited to where you can use it, unless it is installed on the computer you happen to be on. The advantage of course, is that it is free, which means you can install it on as many computers as you want. Which is very cool. There are feature differences and obviously people have preferences to which program they want to use. But for anyone that only uses these types of programs periodically, it is a far better option than forking out all the cash needed for Adobe Photoshop.

But now, I have found another program that creates more options, and it does many of the same things as either of these other programs, only it is all in the cloud. You are not required to have it installed on your computer to use it, you only need an internet connection and a recent version of Flash and any browser. So you could use it anywhere, at any time, if you have an internet connection. Now, of course if you upgrade, which is not required ever unless you want to, it costs less than a measly $20/year and at that point you get the Pro version, which allows you to still use the software on your computer, even when you do not have an internet connection.

I am not an artist or even a graphic designer and this program is very new to me, so I really do not know all the features or what is better or not better, when you compare any of the these three programs. But when you look on Sumo Paint’s website and you see art work, such as the art that is on this profile: http://www.sumopaint.com/profile/?id=99003 then you really get a glimpse of what this software can do.

There are many, many users all over the world, registered and using Sumo Paint and there is a vibrant social community for artists of many types and for those who appreciate art all right there. Take a minute to look at all the different creations and even test out the software, without registering or doing anything. If you like it enough, then you can register and use it for free and if you are a hardcore artist, go ahead and upgrade to the pro version.

I am not getting any money and I am not being paid to write this… I am just sharing something I found that I thought might be useful to some of you out there. I hope that ends up being the case. Enjoy.

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Recently one of my friends on Buzz, which of course is Google‘s new recently released social network, left a great post I think you might be interested in. But first Buzz is an excellent way to connect with new people and I am sure, that once they get the whole process integrated, it will get even better. You can join me on Buzz if you want too.

Anyway back to the purpose of this post. Since I have been researching quite a bit about how to build and use FB’s fan pages, I thought I would share some more info that was recently shared with me. I am passing on this great post from Buzz, by one of my Buzz friends… you may want to check out this article called: Hit the Links: Facebook Fan Page Country Club

Enjoy.

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