Frankly, I don’t care.

No, really.  I don’t care because it’s not a winner takes all competition.  There is room for multiple social networks and we (collectively) will learn how to use them to our advantage over time.  The use of a specific social network is a personal preference at this point.  Not for brands, that is.  They play by different rules.  For the individual, it’s your choice.  If Google+ doesn’t work for you, I’m not sure that’s the end of the world.  Likewise for Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Ultimately, I think you should end up choosing a social network based on three questions:

• Where are my friends?
• Where is the best source of information for my personal interests?
• Where can I find information about my profession?

The answer to these 3 questions will not always be the same social network.  Lets break down my personal habits to demonstrate.

• Where are my friends?  That’s an easy one.  I suspect for the large majority the answer is Facebook.  Fair enough.
• Where is the best source of information for my personal interests?  Your “friend” social graph is not necessarily aligned with your personal interests.  I found the answer to this question is a mixture of Twitter and Facebook.
• Where can I find information about my profession?  For me, that’s LinkedIn and Google+.   Google’s efforts are still in their infancy and many of the people I have circled are posting information about social media related topics.  Intelligent conversations ensue.

From my personal example hopefully you can find a takeaway.  Pick the social networks that work for your interests and needs.  This is not an all or none choice and I’m afraid many treat it as such.  For example, “I already have a Facebook account.  Why should I sign up for XYZ social network?”  That’s a fair question if you are only looking to answer one of the 3 questions above.  Diversify and you’ll find the information streams across these networks are much richer when used for specific purposes.

Dear Valued Best Buy Customer,

On March 31, we were informed by Epsilon, a company we use to send emails to our customers, that files containing the email addresses of some Best Buy customers were accessed without authorization.

We have been assured by Epsilon that the only information that may have been obtained was your email address and that the accessed files did not include any other information. A rigorous assessment by Epsilon determined that no other information is at risk. We are actively investigating to confirm this.

For your security, however, we wanted to call this matter to your attention. We ask that you remain alert to any unusual or suspicious emails. As our experts at Geek Squad would tell you, be very cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown senders.

In keeping with best industry security practices, Best Buy will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on our secure e-commerce site,www.bestbuy.com. If you receive an email asking for personal information, delete it. It did not come from Best Buy.

Our service provider has reported this incident to the appropriate authorities.

We regret this has taken place and for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We take your privacy very seriously, and we will continue to work diligently to protect your personal information. For more information on keeping your data safe, please visit:
http://www.geeksquad.com/do-it-yourself/tech-tip/six-steps-to-keeping-your-data-safe.aspx.

Sincerely,

Barry Judge
Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer
Best Buy

Traditional advertising players risk major revenue declines as budgets shift rapidly to new, interactive formats, which are expected to grow at nearly five times that of traditional advertising. To survive in this new reality, broadcasters must change their mass audience mind-set to cater to niche consumer segments, and distributors need to deliver targeted, interactive advertising for a range of multimedia devices…

OK. Here’s the interesting part. The snippet above is from a report published by IBM. You read that correctly. Big Blue has chimed in on the state of advertising and how new media is going to turn the old model inside out.

• From highly targeted ads on Facebook (you do have a Facebook page, right?) that allow you to focus on a key demographic, between the age of 30 and 60 that live in Florida to…
• …building a community around your blog to…
• …creating a fan base by publishing low quality (cheap) YouTube videos to…
• …using affiliate codes to cut out the middle man (publishing a book? use Lulu and Amazon) to…
• …creating a new level of transparency with Twitter to…
• …forming your own social network with Ning to…
• …building awareness about interests and links via Del.icio.us

All of these niche tools and markets have the ability to seriously impact the effectiveness of your company’s advertising dollar or your personal reputation (you are managing your reputation online, right?)

The takeaway:

Learn to market the social presence of yourself or your company.

If IBM gets it, shouldn’t you? It might just be the end of the advertising world as we know it and, you know what? I think I feel fine.

Napster (circa 2001) was the greatest thing to ever happen to the music industry since Jimi Hendrix. And the RIAA sued Napster out of existence (it still technically exists but you would be hard pressed to find someone that uses it). The RIAA has been suing individuals for stealing music off the internet ever since. Don’t get me wrong. Stealing is wrong. BUT….the music industry has done NOTHING to replace the functionality of Napster that was so clearly appealing to their customers. Repeat after me: I PROMISE I WILL LISTEN TO MY CUSTOMERS.

The Takeaway: I could rant about this for hours but, as readers of this site, the message should be clear. Don’t ignore your marketplace or, eventually, the marketplace will ignore you.

Reluctantly, I called your tech support number after my standard troubleshooting did not yield results. Your phone representative told me that my account had been suspended. They gave me a phone number to call and were not able to tell me anything else. How odd.

I called the supplied phone number and discovered that it was the “Bellsouth Abuse Department”. My account had been flagged for abuse. How very odd.

Here’s the not-so-funny part. You disconnected my account on Friday evening *after* the abuse department closed….on a holiday weekend. This meant that I would not be able to regain DSL access to the internet until Tuesday morning at the earliest. For an active internet user this is akin to taking my crack pipe away. Shame on you.

Here’s the funny part. I called Earthlink and they were more than happy to provide me with an internet connection. The line was provisioned and I was on my way down the information superhighway before you could even call me back.

Amazing. Your OWN doing caused me to shift my business to Earthlink and they were more than happy to take it. This is not only a lesson for AT&T but for all other consumer facing companies in the world. Remember this: I have choices. And if you push me to far I will exercise my right to make those choices and shift my business to a competitor. Simple, right?

The take away: Consumer marketing is increasingly all about the experience. Look at the tools that have been created to capture that experience. The Net Promoter Score comes to mind. Focus on your experience and, if you’re product speaks for itself, you will *easily* rise to the top.

Oh yeah….and in case anyone was wondering, AT&T explained to me that my account had been sending spam so the assumption was that one of my computers had a “virus on something”. I couldn’t even tell you what the email address on this account was let alone the last time that it was used. After admitting to me on the phone that he/she (the Bellsouth Abuse Department representative) was “not very technical” my account was turned back on immediately……and summarily canceled by me after being transferred to the billing department.

Here’s the problem: Most brick and mortar stores are ill-equipped to handle online purchasing traffic. That is, it can be supremely easy to buy something online and opt to pick it up in the store. However, the in-store experience can be a dismal one. In most cases the staff that service these online purchases are part of the customer (dis)service counter and it takes longer for them to *find* your order than it would for me to actually pull my items off the shelf.

I mentioned Best Buy but they are actually further ahead from a cross channel sales perspective than many of their competitors. I’m looking at the you over there in the corner….Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Target. Your prices are great but I often opt for other online retailers (with the in-store pickup option) based on what I remember about the in-store experience. Ugh, what a hassle it can be to simply communicate to a retail associate that I ordered something online for pick-up in the store.

The takeaway: Your offline retail experience has the potential to *kill* your online sales activity. Remember that you are the experience….offline, online, catalog….it doesn’t matter. What the consumer will remember is their overall impression of all interactions. They will not discern between great prices/great selection online and a dismal offline experience.