Search together with Social Media are the two key places your brand, and your business are found.

Google gives you the opportunity to control what’s in your listing, both for accuracy and to provide additional valuable content for your customers.  It also gives you information about how well your listing is working, and how many people have seen and clicked on it.

Claim and enhance your free listing.

1.  Visit Google’s Local Business Center.  It’s easy and provides  a way to have an online presence even if you don’t yet have a website.

2.  Validate your listing.  This is how you confirm to Google that it is really your business.  It is done either by phone or a mailed postcard.  You’ll need a free Google account, which you likely have already.

3.  Enhance your listing.  Add quality photos and videos, together with highlighting content that makes you unique.

4.  Continue to improve your listing.  You can visit your listing and check its performance as well as keep it current seasonally, or with other new information and visual content.

Paid listings coming soon.

Another potentially valuable feature is $25/month premium listings.  They are currently being tested in various markets and will likely soon be released on a wide scale basis.  Here’s how these work:

1.  Further highlight what you have to offer.  Enhance your search results listing to include direct links to photos, videos, websites, coupons, directions, menus or reservations sign up.

2.  Whenever your listing appears in a Google or Google Maps search result, the premium information will appear alongside it. This does do not, however, affect the ranking of listings, and Google indicates which parts of the search results are sponsored.

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Types of communication and a strategy:

Criticism. See adversity as an opportunity to demonstrate customer service, industry leadership and willingness to take responsive action. It’s the best time to head off a crisis before it happens. Don’t act abruptly and stay calm. If your blood pressure is rising, count to ten first. Keep perspective.  If the criticism isn’t warranted or is a personal attack, giving space to your other readers to come to your defense can be an excellent posture.

Kudos. Compliments can come in the form of an individual post, Tweet or Facebook update. Positive word-of-mouth is the best way to gain future business from new or existing customers.  Keep Kudos on file and reuse them in appropriate ways and venues with the writer’s permission. Be sure to thank any employee mentioned for outstanding service.

Questions. Respond timely to demonstrate expertise and industry leadership. This participation is wanted and needed, and is irreplaceable in terms of credibility.

Industry talk. Find people writing about your industry and engage with them. It’s an excellent way to keep abreast of what’s new with competitors and products, changes of employment, satisfaction or dissatisfaction with competitors, and what customers want, like and dislike.  You may find new ideas and get valuable input. Listening to industry talk often affords me a critical time advantage to knowing what is happening and what is about to happen. Talking within my industry also buildings reputation and trust.

Final Tip: Start Engaging

Be unique, establish trustworthiness, and look for ways to add value to the conversation. It always feels like less is more when it comes to selling, especially at the outset.

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Google developed the tool and implemented it on Google Earth. As a result, they relocated the download button to where it would always be visible and thereby increased downloads by 10%.

Browser Size displays pastel lines indicating what percentage of visitors can see a particular area of any web page you inquire about.

I immediately started looking at my webpages and those of clients.  As a result, I’ll be making suggestions for improvements to a number of sites.

Let me know how it works for you.

2.  Schedule the remainder of the year now.  “Bank” posts and tweets so that you can have free time and holiday fun while still not neglecting your website/blog and Twitter.  Plan your Facebook status updates as well.  Don’t forget to add photos and videos that make your content engaging.

3.  Decide which days to stay engaged.  I firmly believe that Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are generally most important for posting and comments.  With long weekend holidays in December, however, I’ll suggest that Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be the key days to participate in Social Media.

4.   Practice social media generosity.  Comment on and complement others and see how you can help them.  Remember these come back ten-fold.

5.  Define your 2010 Social media plan.  If you haven’t done so already, the down-time of the holidays is the perfect opportunity to plan your 2010 Social Media road map.

6.  Let yourself embrace the holidays.  It’s only once a year and the rest of the Social Media world will be taking time off too.

I look forward to your comments and hearing about your Social Media holiday plans.

Enjoy the holidays!

Photo:  Recycled bottle Christmas Tree, Sydney, Australia

An Inc. 500 study conducted by University of Massachusetts Dartmouth shows that fast-growing companies are heavily focused on Social Media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

It further indicates that these elite businesses believe that Social Media is a core component of their business marketing model.

If you aren’t sure how important all this Social Media fallderall is, here’s some stats from the study that might just get your attention.

• 80% have undertaken Social Media in 2009 (vs. 49% a year earlier)
• 45% have undertaken blogging in 2009 (vs. 39% a year earlier)
• 52% have adopted Twitter
• 68% monitor their brand online (vs 50% two years earlier)

Bottom Line for Small Business:

This is not the time to be watching Social Media from the sidelines, or have only a toe in the water and remain semi or non committed.

America’s top businesses know that Social media is a pivotal tool in marketing and are adopting these technologies at a lightning-fast pace.  The longer you wait the harder it will be to play catch-up.

If you have specific questions on how Social Media can help you business, be sure to contact us for help. We also invite you to leave a comment.

Facebook Hits 300 Million Users.

1.  @ mentions are now at Facebook.

This comes from the Twitter standard for bringing a post to someone’s attention.  For example, when you type “@techspokes” in a Twitter post, it shows up in a special mentions area which makes it easy for me to find.

In Facebook’s adaptation, called status tagging, a list of your  friends and pages is brought up to choose from when you type @ in Facebook Publisher.

When you get mentioned, it shows up on your Facebook wall.  You also receive a notification and can remove the tag, if you so choose.

This is great for businesses using Facebook fan pages, as it provides you with an excellent new way to track comments and feedback.  These will appear on your fan page without users having to visit your page.  This feature also works for group page  and events.

2.  Live chat and video chat coming soon.

Facebook and game developer Vivox has plans to roll out voice chat very shortly.  It is a simple to use application where you’ll share a link and start talking.  A video chat application will soon be unveiled as well.  Facebook confirms that it is now being tested.

Voice and video chat features will add additional traction to gangbuster Facebook. Analysis indicates that with gamers for example, chat users stay online longer and play games longer than without chat.  Likely the same will be true for Facebook users overall.

Twitter Growth Continues

1.  18 million U.S. adults access Twitter at least once a month.

Next year, that number is estimated to be 26 Million. In another insteresting statistic, Nielson is reporting Twitter had 21 million unique visitors in June.

2.  Ads may be coming.

Twitter announced they have the right to put ads next to your tweets and are considering doing so.  They invite user feedback and I suggest you let them know how you feel.

From a business perspective, I’m concerned about not having control over ads next to my tweet.  What if the ad is a product I don’t endorse or comes from a competitor?

3.  You own your tweets.

That’s right.  Twitter announced that your tweets are owned by you but gives them the publishing rights.

Facebook is changing both its publishing and privacy features.  This move will let users share their message content with the world, rather than keeping it within the Walls of their application.

Facebook is thus positioning to leverage the news value of real-time posts done by its 250 million current users.

What the changes at Facebook mean.

Demographics are changing.

Facebook is no longer a place inhabited by those in their twenties.  Most users are between 35-54 years of age and the number over 55 has increased significantly.

It’s become the domain of a mass audience spanning all age ranges.  Those using Facebook as a business tool will need to rethink and re-gear for a rapidly changing viewership.

Huge cultural shift underway.

Facebook was built exclusively on private sharing within relationships.  It’s attempting to rebrand itself as the standard of real-time sharing, public updates, and news.

Twitter’s popularity seen as a threat to Facebook.

Twitter continues to see unstoppable growth and has become a standout for brands seeking to engage with customers.  The recently revised Twitter search has made all Twitter content more easily findable.

These changes at Facebook come as no surprise to me.

Social media tools have moved to the masses, many of whom have more free time and more interest in social interaction,  The key to success at Facebook and at Twitter is who can provide the most global value the quickest.

Some believe that the shift in demographics at Facebook is an indication that more senior members have created alienation among the younger users.

I do not concur with that.

I think that its usefulness for younger members around whom Facebook was designed has likely exceeded the sweet spot, and the drop-off is therefore a natural and anticipated attrition.

Stay tuned for more ways to market yourself on Facebook.