Reciprocity
One of Tara’s key points was on reciprocity: if you want to be an influencer, you need to provide time and attention to the community.

Become part of the community you serve. Ask:
– what problem can I solve?
– what makes people happy?
Then, integrate the answers into your initiatives.

I took this concept as a reminder I can share with others when they bring up that social media is inexpensive — when planning social media projects, you have to plan for an investment of your personal time (lots of it!) as well as your budget dollars.

Tara also advised, look for opportunities to turn the bullhorn around because it’s impersonal otherwise–you’re just shouting. Further, worry less about stating your position than listening and responding personally to others to create amazing customer experiences.

Create amazing customer experiences
1. Dazzle with the details (e.g. Moleskine)
2. Go above and beyond (e.g. TED)
3. Appeal to emotion (Vosges black pear chocolate)
4. Inject fun into the experience (Google’s talk like a pirate day)
5. make something mundane exceptional
6. Let people personalize
7. Be experimental (threadless, iplai: iparklikeanidiot.com)
8. Simplify (37 signals)
9. Make happiness your business model
10. Be a social catalyst

Tara continued with more points about how you can build whuffie. Look for her slides on slideshare (site was down for maintenance just now). Or, for more you can check out her book, The Whuffie Factor. It’s due on shelves April 21, but if you click over you’ll find video clips, images and more info.

One of the Tuesday workshops I attended was SEO From Soup to Nuts, by Stephan Spencer. Stephan is president of Netconcepts, writes a column for Search Engine Land, and his blog is Stephan Spencer’s Scatterings.

SEO has become one of my interests over the past few months because a good SERP is one of the ways that I’m measuring the success of the various social media marketing projects I’m working on for Allstate.

Stephan held everyone’s attention. I’ve only been following the SEO buzz for a short time, but everyone listened to hear what the secret sauce is to getting good search engine results on Google. I’m sure there are a few secrets, but from everything I’ve read and heard, it really comes down to basic concepts like publishing good content, using good keywords and at the right keyword density.

Stephan pointed out the right keywords are ones that are relevant to your business and popular with searches. There are a number of good SEO Tools available to help you see your site the way a search engine would and to refine your keywords.

SEO Tools
Some of the tools mentioned include:
Quintura
Google Suggest
Yahoo Search Assist
Woodtracker (subscription)
Seobrowser

Much of the talk focused on keys to pagerank such as getting your site fully indexed, making sure your pages are visible to crawlers, and building good inbound links.

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Please update your links for m2h blogs.
Speaking of building good inbound links, would you please check your links for me and make sure they’re still working? My site at “mwrites” died a while back because of problems with a domain host.
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But back to the topic at hand — did you know that the length of time your domain is registered for is one of the ways authority and longevity is determined? I don’t know that it’s a major factor, but it was one of the things mentioned.

Stephan’s Top 3 Tips
1. Content – write good content
2. Architecture – publish flatter (1 level down better than 5)
3. Links – build inbound links with good authority

Another tip Stephan gave was how to add good anchor text to your website links on LinkedIn. it’s easier than you think to do, but it was a great final remark he gave as “homework.”

Are you on LinkedIn? View my profile and add me as a contact.

More to follow.

Where do I look for research along the lines of games and building awareness, generating engagement, and building loyalty?

What is the top hit for “bills” at del.icio.us?
Billshare – a free application for people who need to split bills and keep a record of it. If I had a roommate and needed to track expenses, it might be the perfect app.

The #2 hit — billQ also looks like a cool web-based app to keep track of your bills. I really like the reminder feature that users can set-up to send to their cell phone or email.

Ogilvy created the design and Lithium is hosting the site. I worked with some really talented people from both organizations to launch this site. I just have to mention the cool icons Ogilvy created. If you register, you’ll be able to check them out. However, all of Lithium’s work is behind the scenes to keep the boards up and functioning as they should.

For me personally, given my research interest in networks, this project is right up my alley. I hope to learn a lot more over the coming months about how people communicate on the boards. By the way, if you have any community moderation and management resources to recommend, please be sure to leave a comment below.

One other thing I want to mention is the Terms of Use. Usually these documents are not much fun to read and we all agree to variations of these any time we register with a new site. However, I do have to say that I’m particularly happy with the Allstate Authorized Users paragraph because it requires Allstate employees to disclose their connection to Allstate. While this point may not add much to the legal provisions of the document, I thought it important from a social media perspective, and I’m glad I was able to keep it in the final version. And, now that I’ve disclosed my connection, and even though I’m not an Allstate employee, I’ll need to add a disclaimer to my sidebar to the tune of: “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Allstate’s positions, strategies, or opinions.”

You can also check out the User Guidelines. I think Item #1 about not posting specific insurance advice is the one that I’ll need to watch the most as conversations take place. Because of how the insurance industry is regulated, that is a key provision of the document and something I’ll need to monitor.

More topics are planned for the year, but we really want to see what develops. Check it out if you have time, and I’ll be interested if you have any feedback for me.

Some employees of Miller Beer are protesting the possibility that CEO Norman Adami might freeze their pensions (video). These employees are union employees so I doubt they will lose their jobs over this public protest, still it’s interesting to note how they are using a You-Tube video to make their point and respond to management actions. I wonder if they felt they had no other options. We might see more corporate policies to try and prevent such things, and we might see more anonymous versions (say with faces obscured). However, I’d agree with Virgina that the best thing for management would be to respond proactively with more open internal communication options for employees.

I’ve created several different radio stations for different types of music depending on what else I’m doing. So far, I’ve got stations that are similar to Jim Brickman (great piano without vocals for working), Faith Hill & Tim McGraw (country), and Dar Williams (folk). I tried to find Christine Kane’s music in the collection, but no luck.

Then, I think it’s a good way to be introduced to different groups and hear more than just the 30 second clip that is in iTunes or at Amazon.

Pandora is supported right now with ads that are visible on the radio station web page, and according to the FAQ page, will eventually be incorporated into the free version. However, you can also purchase a membership for $36 a year if the ads get obnoxious. This is really a fantastic service. I’d pay the $36 and consider it a good investment. There’s more info on the website or Pandora’s blog.