Is Skype Premium Worth It?

You may be a long time Skype user and wondering if you should upgrade to Premium. If you’d like to upgrade to use group video and make unlimited calls to phones, those are good reasons to consider paying for Skype.

If you’re upgrading just to get premium call quality, then you may want to reassess your needs. Since they rely on the Internet, Skype and other VoIP services are susceptible to call quality issues. However, there might be other compelling reasons to start paying for Skype. In this article I take a close look at Skype Premium and some of the alternatives.

Skype Premium subscriptions feature group video calling for up to 10 people and includes group screen sharing. Currently with free Skype you can have only two on a video call, but you can have up to 25 on a voice conference.

You can make unlimited calls to landlines and mobile phones to a country of your choice. You also get live tech support via IM and no ads in the software.

Skype Premium is reasonably priced at $9.99 USD per month. If you pay annually you can get it for as low as $59.88, which comes out to only $4.99 a month. That’s not bad at all.

Now you may be thinking of upgrading to Premium to use Skype in your business, and wonder how dependable voice and video conferencing is and if it can be relied on for professional meetings.

Skype for Business

One of the complaints I often hear with Skype is that it can be unreliable, especially in multiparty calls. This is a concern if you hope to use Skype for your business.

The problems may not be Skype’s fault. It could be your Internet connection, router settings or something with your ISP, which would affect any VoIP service. Using another service may not improve your call reliability.

Perhaps the best strategy is using several communications services. When your primary service has problems, you switch to a backup. This is a strategy I use, often rotating services to make sure we get through meetings.

Switching services in the middle of a call is certainly not convenient, especially when there are more than two people on the call. The interruption breaks the current stream of thought and you may lose momentum. For one-on-one calls this is less of an issue in my experience.

The key is to always be prepared. For example, for important meetings I may record the session. If anyone has connectivity issues I will continue the meeting and send a copy of the recording to all attendees.

Skype does not have a recording feature built into its software, but it is possible with the use of add-on tools. The tool I use, which is the one Skype recommends, is Evaer Skype video recorder. You can find out more about here:

http://www.evaer.com/

Most people are forgiving when you have technical issues, especially if you have a good relationship with the involved parties. People understand having been there before and realize it’s not your fault. However, when you have a meeting with someone or a group you don’t know very well, it can be another story. A bad connection or dropped call may annoy some in group. It might be better to rely on your mobile or landlines for initial meetings with a new client or partner as you build rapport, then move collaboration to VoIP later.

If you do use Skype Premium for your business, you should have at least one conferencing backup. Here are a few free and low cost VoIP services that can serve as backups or alternatives to Skype:

Google Hangouts

There’s been a lot of hype since the launch of Google Hangouts. Unlike Skype, Hangouts allows video conferencing with 10 people for free.

Hangouts has some nice features such as integration with Google apps, like Google Docs, and live video streaming. The live streaming feature, “On Air,” allows viewers to watch a Hangout live on YouTube. Great for your own “TV” show or other live broadcast.

Hangouts does have some very cool features, and even more impressive is that these features are free. However, for basic chat and one-on-one video calls, I don’t think Hangouts has any advantage over Skype.

When it comes to calling phones Hangouts is limited. Google Voice, which is integrated with Hangouts, only works in the U.S. If you’re outside the U.S. or need to call people outside the U.S. you’re out of luck. But if all your business dealings are within the U.S. or you only need a backup for video meetings, then Hangouts should work out well.

Oovoo

Oovoo was designed for video calling, and it does it well. You can have 12 people on a video call for free. It even has screen sharing and can record calls under the free plan. The Premium plan just removes ads from the software, provides priority support and gives you some online storage for your recordings.

The only problem is getting people to use Oovoo when there’s Skype and Hangouts, which is why I use it mainly for backup purposes. It’s much easier to coordinate and get a group of people connected on a Skype call. It does have a feature that allows people to receive calls without an Oovoo account, but the participation is limited.

Phone Power

If most of your business or personal communication is over the phone, and video conferencing is less of a priority, then Phone Power unlimited business phone servicemight be a better option than Skype Premium.

Phone Power is a top rated VoIP service that provides unlimited calls for as little $8.33 USD a month. You get a phone number for others to call you (additional cost with Skype) and a second phone line for free. It’s packed with features, such as 3-Way calling, call forwarding, 911 and ClickToCall. See all of the 45 features visit here: Phone Power plans

Phone Power is a replacement for residential or small business landline, but it does not offer video calls. If video is not important to you, then Phone Power is the way to go. If you ever need video conferencing, just use Google Hangouts or Oovoo for free.

Other Communications Backups

IM Apps

Look around, these days there are chat programs embedded into many apps and desktop programs. Many offer voice and video, and can be pretty reliable. For instance, sometimes if my gamer buddies and I are using Hangouts or Skype and experience poor quality or drops, we’ll switch to Steam chat and not miss a beat.

Smartphone/Tablet

Once I had a Skype meeting planned and joined the meeting from my desktop computer. Because of poor call quality, I couldn't understand when people spoke and they had trouble hearing me.

I opened the Skype app on my smartphone, dropped off my desktop and rejoined the meeting on my phone. The call was clear. I suppose the improvement was because I was on a different Internet connection, one through my phone provider.

The great thing was that I missed only a second or two of the meeting while I was reconnecting. Since my phone was on my desk I was able to fire up Skype and sign in while I was still in the meeting on my desktop. The switch was almost seamless. This is a case where I used Skype as a backup for Skype thanks for my phone!

This is another example of planning ahead, having not only available backup services, but backup devices too. You may not realize it, but if you have a data plan with your phone or tablet, that’s a backup Internet and communications line you can use when you have issues with your primary line.

So it is possible to effectively use Skype in your business with some planning and preparedness.

Skype’s Biggest Advantage

Possibly the biggest advantage of using Skype is that it’s user friendly and ubiquitous; most people already know how to use it. Everyone in my family uses it to stay in touch more than they use their phones. My relatives in their 70s and 80s are probably the ones who use it the most!

With millions of subscribers, Skype is almost as universal as having a phone number. It’s now integrated with Facebook, and Microsoft has been forcing people to use Skype as they phase out MSN Messenger, bringing even more subscribers. If you want to have a call or meeting it might be a challenge to get other parties to use something else.

This is sometimes an overlooked benefit of using Skype. Sure, you can get cheaper VoIP services, but few can offer hassle-free video calling with almost anyone in the world. I can’t tell you how many friends and relatives I have who depend on Skype to video chat with isolated and elderly family members, and how much they value those calls. You can’t put a price on that.

Is Skype Premium worth it? In my opinion, yes, as long as you have realistic expectations.

DuckDuckGo Tools and Resources

Many are flocking to the DuckDuckGo search engine as details of PRISM and NSA online surveillance activities have come to the public's attention. DuckDuckGo (or DDG) is one of the few search engines that respects user privacy.

Unlike Google, Bing, Yahoo and others, DDG does not record or collect user information. Search engines like Google and social networks like Facebook typically collect and use personal information to profit from ads and marketing. But as you've probably heard in the news, it was recently discovered that these tech giants and others share this private data, including IP addresses, emails, chat conversations, even Facebook posts, with the NSA and other federal agencies.

After the exposure of the PRISM program earlier this year, DDG's usage has increased astronomically and is currently receiving over 100 million queries each month.

Think you have nothing to hide? The NSA has already demonstrated abuses of their access to private data. Take the example of NSA Officers using collected information to stalk love interests. Who's to say they'll safeguard the data they collect and keep your information out of the wrong hands?

Since DDG doesn't collect user data, they have nothing to hand over to the NSA or anyone else. Of course, if the NSA wants to target a group or individual, they'll certainly get the data they want. DDG or any other privacy service can only go so far. Still, there are plenty of good reasons to use it over Google. Here are a few:

• No "personal search." Google likes to think they know what you want. Since they have your search history, the search engine will show results based on their assumptions about you. It's an annoying feature. People send you links you're not interested it but you click anyway, or your spouse borrows your computer to do a quick search from time to time. Suddenly the search results are showing items you have no interest in. Of course, these features can be turned off but they are on by default with most people not realizing it.


• Google and other search engines use search history to show advertising. Don't forget, Google is not a software company; it's first and foremost a media company that generates revenue from advertisements. If you don't mind being shown advertisements based on what you search for, that's your business (and anyone else who uses your computer). Once at an all day workshop, a manger had his computer connected to the projector. As he looked up information in Google and on some websites for the team, we couldn't help to notice the same flashy dating ads showing up in different places. He was a married man, was he really vising dating sites? Was it even him, did someone borrow his computer to browse dating sites? No one said anything but it didn't go unnoticed and led people to wonder.


• As good as Google is, I often don't find what I'm looking for on the first few tries. Movie times, word definitions, baseball scores, Google excels at the popular searches. It's the longer search phrases or obscure terms I usually have trouble with. Either I get unrelated sites or a bunch of spam sites. I can't say DDG is better at tough searches, but it does surprise me on occasion. DDG's results come from 50 different sources including Wolfram Alpha. DDG also makes an effort to block results from content farm sites designed to game Google's search algorithm and filters.

Since DDG does not collect personal data they don't have any targeted ads or personalized search "features." I like that they filter out content farm sites I get tired of seeing again and again in Google.

If you're thinking of making the switch, here's a collection of DDG tools and resources similar to what the big search engines offer. Be sure to bookmark this page for quick reference.

How to make DDG your browser's homepage, add or change default search provider and official extensions:

• 
  
  Chrome
  
  
  
  
  • DDG Home Page extension (adds an DDG quick launch icon to the Chrome start page)
  
  
  • Official Chrome extension
  
  
  • Make DDG default search provider for Chrome
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  Firefox (version 23)
  
  
  
  
  • To set DDG as your homepage, click and drag the following link to the small home icon in Firefox: DuckDuckGo Homepage. If done correctly you'll receive a popup asking if you want to change your homepage. Click 'Yes' and you're done.
  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
  
  • Official Firefox extension
  
  
  • Make DDG default search provider for Firefox
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  Safari (version 5)
  
  
  
  
  • To set DDG as the homepage: visit DuckDuckGo.com. Click the Gear icon, select Preferences. On the Homepage setting, click Set to Current Page.
  
  
  • Official Safari extension
  
  
  • Add DDG as a search provider for Safari (scroll down)
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  Internet Explorer 9
  
  
  
  
  • To set DDG as the homepage: visit DuckDuckGo.com, click Set as Homepage on the bottom right. Also click Add to Browser -> Install IE search provider and check the box to make it the default search provider.
  
  
  • No official extension.
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  Opera
  
  
  
  
  • Add as Speed Dial entry and other integration options
  
  
  • Official extension
  
  
  
  

DDG mobile apps:

• Android: Google Play


• iOS: iTunes

Tools

DuckDuckGoodies are instant answers to common searches, like unit conversions and calculations, that appear on the top of the search results. Google has a similar feature they added to search a couple years ago.

Here's a categorized list of available Goodies with examples: DuckDuckGoodies 


Add a DDG search box to your site:

• WordPress plugin:
  DuckDuckGo Search Widget


• HTML: https://duckduckgo.com/search_box

Advanced searching: operators, switches and filters: DDG Syntax

Support and Community

Main help and support pages: https://dukgo.com/help/en_US

DDG user forums: http://duck.co/

There are lots more resources but this is enough to get most people going. From now on when someone comes to you with a question you don't know the answer to, instead of suggesting they Google it, you can now tell them to Duck it!

Quick Social Media Cover Image Sizes

There is no shortage of services and independent designers who will create cover photos for your social accounts. They'll likely come up with something creative based on your input and feedback, and provide the correct sizes you need. All at a fair price.

But what if you just want something simple that will get your profiles done quickly so you can move on to more important activities?

This is often the case for me. I like to get new Pages up quickly so I can start posting content and growing the followers. I needed a table I could glance at and know what images I need and what their sizes should be. A barebones list of images and dimensions that can be used to guide cropping and resizing. I can always upgrade the cover photos later if I want. Plus I think it’s a good idea anyway to change cover images from time to time to keep the Page fresh.

So I came up with a social media profile and cover image size table below, which quickly gives me exactly what I need.

Profile images, or “avatars” as some social sites call them, are usually square. In the table I didn't specify maximum sizes for Facebook and Google+ profiles because I’m not sure what they are. I couldn't find anything in their support pages. Being curious, I uploaded some very large image files to each social network. No problem! Of course, I was asked to crop the images since they were so big, and then they were reduced further when saved.

The following image size information was compiled by reading the specs on each social network's support pages and reviewing advice posted by graphic designers. The dimensions are up to date at the time this article was posted. For best results use the largest sizes listed if you can. All image dimensions are in pixels, with width first followed by height.

Social Network	Profile Min	Profile Max	Cover Image Min	Cover Image Max	Background Image
Facebook	180 x 180	n/a	851 x 315
Twitter	240 x 240	500 x 500	520 x 260	1252 x 626	1600 x 900
Google+	250 x 250	n/a	480 x 270	2120 x 1192	1920 x 1080
LinkedIn	200 x 200	500 x 500	640 x 220
YouTube	200 x 200	1600 x 1600			2560 x 1440
Pinterest	165 x 165	600 x 600
Gravatar	80 x 80	420 x 420
Tumblr	64 x 64	n/a
Foursquare	128 x 128	100KB	860 x 130 (brand pages)

 

I like to use this table by looking up the social media accounts I need cover images for, and then start with the largest.

For example, according to the table the YouTube background is the largest image. But let’s say I just need to create cover images for a new Google+ Page and a Facebook Page. Since Google+ it’s the biggest of the two I need that's where I start. And because I started with the biggest image I need, I may be able to use the same cover and crop and resize it down to Facebook size. It’s all about being efficient.

However, some of you may want to use an image template instead that shows where the profile image and other content is placed over the cover image. That way the content can be accounted for and designed around.

The content can also be creatively merged into the design if you want, such as this classic example from the Ford Motor Company's Facebook Page:



Note how the profile image of the Mustang emblem on the car's grill was incorporated into the overall cover image design. If this is something you want to design into your images it’s helpful to have templates that show where other content is positioned on top of the cover image.

Here are some diagrams with downloadable Photoshop templates: http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/social-media-cover-photo-templates/ This is one of the more up to date references I found.

The social networks seemingly frequent changing of cover sizes has been a source of frustration by many social media users (especially the ones who paid for custom designs). You get your YouTube channel or Facebook Page looking slick and then they go and change the sizes on you. And if you don’t update your Pages look outdated.

However, it seems like these sizes are stable now and may be around for a while. The trend over the years had been larger cover images, but how much bigger can they get? That’s why I think these sizes might be stable. But Facebook is the wildcard since their cover images are relatively small. Given they are the biggest and with the other networks chasing them, hopefully they won’t feel the need to make any "improvements" for a while. One can hope.

Time To Take Advantage Of Google+

It's been nearly two years now since Google+ publicly launched and many are still ignoring what has become the second largest social network. If you're a small business owner using Facebook or Twitter, Google+ may be one of those things on you plan to get to someday. You may have excuses: you don't know how to use it, you're wondering if you should even attempt to use it, and the biggest one of all is, "How the heck will I find time for another social network?!" These are valid points to think about, and believe me, you're not alone.

This article will explain the significance of Google+ and show you how to use it to build your online authority, expand your community, and share your content with a larger audience. You will learn how to take advantage of all the features on Google+ and know how to make the many features work for you. But before you can even consider these valuable features, let's take a look at what exactly Google+ is.

Google+ Explained

Google designed Google+ to make sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. Basically, the user experience on Google+ is similar to that of Facebook. The major difference with Google+ is to make it easier to control who sees what content with "Circles," which are specific groups of people instead of just publishing content on your Wall for everyone to see.

For example, do you want your business associates to see pictures of your new kitten, or just your friends and family? Likewise, do you want to bombard your family with posts of industry news related to your businesses? Circles are the way to group the people in your life so they only see what you want them to see.

Regarding your business, Circles provide efficient, targeted messaging to your customers and clients. This can be much more effective than other social networks. Using Circles you can place your followers into categories, similar to direct mail or email segmentation lists. You may have content or campaigns intended for prospects, those who you have not done business with yet. You may run a campaign for a subset of your paying customers. You may have content for entire client and prospect base. With Circles you can control your campaigns for precise targeting.

There are other important reasons to use Google+ beyond the Circles feature, one of which is search discovery. Think of the millions of people who search Google every day. If you want to increase your Google Search presence, you should consider this—Google will always favor itself. When you share content from your website on your Google+ Page, you are helping your business rank higher in the Google Search Engine.

Google has also integrated Google+ in its other services, such as Gmail, Google Docs (now Drive), YouTube, Google Local others. And don't forget about Android, Google's platform that powers more mobile devices than Apple's iOS. Soon having a Google+ may not be an option, it may become a necessity in surviving online.

Getting Started on Google+

Creating a Google+ account is fast and easy. There are only 3 steps with only a few pieces of information asked about you, most of which are optional.

When you visit http://plus.google.com, you'll see the welcome screen with the Sign in box on the left. Sign in with your Gmail account or click CREATE AN ACCOUNT if you don't have one.

Complete the information (you don't have to put your real birthday), click the agreement checkboxes and click Upgrade.

In the next screen you're asked to add people you know. When you hover over the Add button a popup will appear with four starter Circles for you to select from.

More on Circles in the next section.

Click Continue after you add a few people or skip adding people for now.

Next you're asked to follow celebrity accounts. Click Continue when you're done following.

The next step asks you to fill out your profile. Like Facebook, you have the option of adding places you've lived, worked and gone to school. Click Finish and you're done!

After creating your account you'll be on the Google+ home page, where you can begin participating. However, you may want to visit the Setting page where you can change your privacy settings, or head to your Profile page and change your background image and profile picture. Both are available by hovering over the Home link in the upper left corner.

How To Use Google+ Circles

If the whole concept of "Circles" has you confused, just understand what a "Circle" represents by remembering they are simply groups. You can have a Circle of friends, prospective customers, current customers, business organizations, or any number of possibilities.

Creating Circles

As you may have notice when you created your account, Google+ provides a few default circles to get you started: Friends, Family, Acquaintances and Following. You can drag people from a list of suggested people into circles individually or by highlighting multiple people at a time and dragging them all into one circle. These suggestions come from your Gmail account, so if you don't see someone you'd like to Circle, try adding them to your Gmail contacts.

You can also create a new Circle on the fly by dropping a friend onto the "Drop here to create a new circle" or simply hover over that circle to create a new one before you start dragging your connections over.

When you add your first person to a Circle, you'll get a popup notification that you can now share with them and see what they are sharing with you. After you place someone in one of your Circles, that person doesn't know which of your Circles they're in. No one does. They only receive a message that they've been followed. You could have a Circle labeled "Jerks" and the people in that Circle will never know.

You will also receive a notification that they will appear on your public profile. You may not want this. If not, you can click on the "Change" link which will take you to your Google profile with a highlighted box where you can change the visibility settings to show people in all circles or just selected ones, select whether anyone on the web or just people in your circles can see that information and select whether to show people who have added you to their circles.

You may wish to add people who are not on Google+ yet, adding them to a circle means that they will receive your Google+ posts via email. You should be aware that those people haven't signed up and might not really want to receive your updates. You could perhaps create a circle for those who only receive email updates for tighter control of the message volume.

Posting

If you use Facebook, sharing content on Google+ is almost the same process.

You have box where you can write or paste a link or upload a photo. The text box supports hashtags to group posts and helpin searches.

The big difference is the To box that pops up after you enter some content. The To box allows you to share your post with any of your Circles, or a person in your Circles, or a combination of Circles and individuals.

The Public option means that anyone will be able to see your post. However, people specified will receive a notification of your post. This is important to understand: notifying people each time you have a new post may annoy them. It's best to have public posts and occasionally share something with a specific Circle or a few individuals.

After you click Share your post will appear in your Stream where people can +1 and comment on your post, similar to Facebook's newsfeed.

Next, Communities and Hangouts...

Google+ Communities

Google+ communities are theme oriented public discussion groups that exist within the social network. Any member of Google+ can create or join a community to share information or participate in discussions. Unlike Circles, members of a community do not have to be in the same Circles to participate and exchange information. Google+ communities are more like online forums meant to start open discussion and exchange ideas on specific topics.

Benefits of Creating a Google+ Community

Creating or joining a community Google Plus has several benefits:

• Communities content is indexed and discoverable by the Google search engine and on Google+.


• Create and manage your own Google+ community and become a reference on a topic of expertise to increase visibility and personal branding.


• Communities allow you to meet other members sharing a common interest, and provide a place to build relationships through social networking.


• Creating a community around a recurring event such as an annual exhibition or conference is a great use of Google+ Communities. Members can receive information before events, and continue discussion after events.

There are only three simple steps to get started with your own community.

1. Go to https://plus.google.com/communities and click the Create a Community button.


2. Choose if it should be a public or private community
   
   You are shown a prompt to set the visibility of your community on Google+. You can choose between four types of community:
   
   • Public - Anyone can join: everyone can become a member, and you see the list of members and posts.
   
   
   • Public- Moderator approval needed to join: Anyone can send a registration and may join if the moderator approves.
   
   
   • Private- Let people find through search and request to join: Users can find the community and apply for registration. They are restricted in the fact that they do not have access to the list of members.
   
   
   • Private- Hide community from searches: The community does not appear in the search results. Only those invited can join.
   
   
   
   


3. Next, name your new community and decide if you want to approve new members or not. When creating a community on Google+, if you have a Google+ Page for your business, choose a distinct name to avoid confusion.

With those three simple steps, you have started your first community. Now you can create categories to guide conversations. You may also add a tagline and a brief description so people know what your community is all about. Your community profile should have a picture that helps describe your community. At this time (this stuff changes frequently), the picture has to be at least 250x250 pixels even though only 200x250 pixels are visible.

Note: the visibility of the community cannot be changed after the creation.

Once your community has launched, you'll can refine the look of your community and invite members.

Add a visual content in connection with the theme of the community to make it easily identifiable: Actions > Edit Community

Fill the "About" section: short description of the principle and the spirit of the community and add URL to other relevant sources.

Invite members: in the Actions dropdown menu, select Invite people. Then add names, circles, or e-mail addresses and send the request.

Create categories of discussion which can be created or modified by the owners of a community or moderators. These will act as filters and help organize community discussions. You may appoint one or more moderator for the community.

Many well-known brands have jumped on the Communities bandwagon. The truth is, however, you don't have to be a well-known brand. Anyone can create a community to discuss most any topic.

You may find that Communities will compliment your Google+ businesses pages. While Google has yet to devise a mechanism where the two actually intersect, a business page can serve promotional functions, while Communities focus on topics of shared interests and interaction.

Google Hangouts

Hangouts is one of the biggest features of Google+. Hangouts is Google's instant message and video chat apps that is fast becoming an alternative to Skype.

Like Skype, Hangouts offers chat, video calls, screen sharing and so on. But there are a few unique features in Hangouts that have people excited:

• Allows video chat with up to 10 (9 friends and yourself), while Skype charges for more than 2 people on a call.


• Has built in Google apps like Google Docs and YouTube live stream.


• People can have fun with emoji and wear animated hats and disguises on screen.


• Hangouts can stream live via the "On Air" feature. Viewers can watch a Hangout live on YouTube, great for your own "TV" show or other live broadcast.

Getting Started With Google Hangouts

To run a Google Hangout you must have a Google+ account, but you already knew that. To start a Hangout with someone, they need to be in one of your Circles. Just click on the New Hangout link on the left of your Google+ profile and invite the people from your Circles.

If you have the Google+ app on your Android or iOS device you can start a Hangout from your phone.

What to do if you want to Hangout with more than 10 people?

While Hangouts are limited to 10 participants, with On Air you can have an unlimited number of viewers. Also, if you have a Google Business Account, you can have 15 participants. Usually, you'd limit the number of presenters anyway, but if you need to have more than 15 speakers you could organize a Hangout into sessions where presenters and viewers switch. With these additional options you should be able to organize any type of online meeting.

A Daily Plan For Social Media Growth

When I first starting using social media I wanted someone to give me a checklist, something I could complete every morning and not have to think about the rest of the day. I like routine and when I have a daily regiment I find I make daily progress. But after searching online for some time, I never found a social media daily plan or checklist from the experts. So I came up with my own checklist, and in the following article I take you through it step-by-step.

It may not be the best plan, or best plan for you, but it’s a starting point. Many business owners and online marketers use social media because that’s what you’re supposed to do these days, and lack a real plan they can stick to day-in, day-out to reach their goals.

This article is designed to give you a plan, one you can execute every day to reach your goals, even if you have a busy schedule.

It’s a flexible daily plan that you can (and should) tweak to meet your own business needs and goals, and is intended to be one part of your overall social media strategy. I hope you find it useful.

A Daily Plan For Social Media Growth http://t.co/gpE5MaYlmi @techiediy One of the greatest posts I have come across.

— Lance Wyllie (@LanceWyllie) August 22, 2013

Contents

1. Introduction and Goals


2. Going Big


3. The Plan


4. Phase I


5. Seeding Your Accounts


6. Groups, Pages and Automation


7. Phase II


8. Weekly Tasks


9. Tools


10. Phase III

YOUR GOALS

Without goals, you won’t be able to measure success and know if what you’re doing is worth the effort. You may not know why you are performing certain activities and become inconsistent. The following are a few basic examples, but you could certainly come up with many others:

• Networking, growing personal networks


• Serve customers and gather feedback


• Establish yourself as an expert or thought-leader in your niche


• Capture leads


• Drive traffic to your website, products

The daily plan detailed in this article is focused on growing your social networks, so that your social media accounts serve as a platform to reach any of the example goals, or those goals that have yet to be inspired. The larger your network, the easier it will be to network, get traffic, leads, and establish yourself as an expert.

For the remainder of this post, the main objective will be to grow your networks as quickly as possible with the least amount of effort, so that at any time you may pivot to any campaign or new goal that develops.

YOUR MODELS

I recommend having a second objective that will help you tweak your social media plan. Identify someone, a person or company, who is successful in your niche and is currently at a level in their business that you want to reach. If possible find more than one. These will serve as models to emulate.

Study your models. Determine how big their social networks are. Using tools like Quantcast and Alexa you can gauge how much traffic they are driving to their sites. Take note at what they are posting and see what gets the most Likes, Retweets and Google +1’s.

With some deep research, you may even be able to estimate how much money they’re earning online. Use this information to come up with targets for you to reach.
Your second objective should be to reach your target in X number of months. As your social media plan is in motion, you can adjust your activities as needed to meet the goal.

Next we go BIG...

HOW BIG?

Your first milestone in your social media journey should be to reach the level of someone who is already having success in your niche. However, your work doesn't have to end there. It’s the philosophy of this author that bigger is better when it comes to your own social networks.

You may hear a very different type of advice from the social media “gurus," who preach building quality networks by screening friends and followers. In my experience, the amount time it takes to “qualify” people I allow in my network does not justify the payoff. That’s just me.

There are many advantages to having social networking accounts with large followings. People (and advertisers) are attracted to big numbers. Even with so-called “low quality” networks (if there is such a thing), with large networks you’ll have more traffic, more joint-venture opportunities, and you’ll find it takes less effort to grow your followers and fans. Your networks will become real assets you can leverage.

The truth is that there is no right answer here, and until you find the answer for yourself, just grow. As you grow and measure your success, your goals will become clear and your strategy will become refined.

THE BIG FOUR

In our social media daily plan, we’re going to focus on the big four social-networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

There are two more sites you should have a presence on and use for traffic: YouTube and Pinterest.

YouTube is an extremely powerful tool for connecting with your audience and driving traffic. It’s not a part of our daily plan because it takes time to produce quality video content. However, I suggest you create video content and include a video marketing strategy as part of your overall social media plan.

I mention Pinterest because the site can deliver lots of traffic depending on your niche. It’s worth testing with your visual content to see if it can help meet your traffic and business goals.

THE BIG PICTURE

As mentioned earlier, the daily action plan is meant to be a portion of your overall social media strategy. The plan includes activities that will easily fit your schedule every day. I recommend allocating a few hours a week or more in addition to the daily plan for maximum results. It’s important to have consistent time each week to create content, perform research, measure results and other tasks.

Now, onto the Plan...

THE PLAN

The goal of this social media daily plan is to give you a set of activities that can realistically be performed every day to grow your following on the big four social networks.

These activities can be done in about 20 minutes a day on average. Some days they may take longer, perhaps 30 minutes, and on other days you might get through them in only 15 minutes.

It’s up to you if you want to complete tasks in the plan every day of the week, or Monday through Friday. I recommend at least committing to Monday through Friday, but for the fastest results, more is better.

No matter how busy you are, you should have 20 minutes in your day to zip through these tasks.

Think you don’t have 20 minutes? Time how long you spend reading emails in the morning. I was shocked to find that I was spending about 45 minutes every morning! And when looking closely at my inbox, I found that 70% to 80% of messages were unimportant. Most were offers, news, a few jokes, things that didn’t really necessitate my immediate attention. Since that analysis, I’ve changed my daily email habits. If you’re in the same boat, see if cutting the time in half in the morning gives you and extra 20 minutes.

There are also recommended weekly tasks that you may perform on one of your “off” days, or you may replace one of the days in your daily schedule. I recommend the former.

I encourage you to go beyond this plan, the more you do, the faster you’ll grow. Use this plan as a base minimum in your overall strategy. In other words, if your strategy is to do one hour of social media activities per day, there will be some days your schedule may not allow you to spend an hour, on these days you can fall back on this plan.

The Plan has two phases and an optional third phase:

Phase 1: Preparation and set up. During this phase, you’ll some light research and set up your social networking accounts, or clean up your existing accounts in preparation for the next phase. You will also “seed” your accounts with some base followers. We’ll also throw some automation tricks into the mix to maximize your time for other tasks.

Phase 2: Execution. After the set up phase, you’re ready to put the daily plan into action.

Phase 3 (optional): Maintenance. When you have reached your goals for growth, you may want to reduce your phase two activities and enter a maintenance mode that is less intense and allows time for new tasks. This phase is optional; you may continue with phase two activities as long as you like.

CONTENT

Based on models you’ve identified in your marketplace, you should have an idea of what type of posts gets the most Likes, Retweets and Google +1’s in your marketplace.

A mistake you may see others make is direct selling on most or all social media updates. While that strategy can work, it destroys your credibility and reputation. This strategy is usually used by people who don’t care about reputation and create lots of fake personas to make it work.

Social media is all about building relationships, not business transactions. People just don’t like to be sold to. Any attempt to sell directly on social media may harm your online presence. In a live situation, a customer would think of excuses and come up with a polite “no” to a sales pitch. But on social media it’s all too easy for customers to turn you off, all they have to do is to click the “unfollow” button, and you’re gone.

I like this example my friend came up with. Social media is much like dating. If a guy walks into a bar with the intention leaving with a new committed relationship, he’s going to walk out empty-handed. In dating, since the two parties don’t know each other very well, there’s a series of progressive steps that builds rapport before there’s any talk of commitment.

It’s the same in social media and sales in general. You need to woo and nurture and to gain respect. Keep this in mind as you decide on what to share with your network.

Be helpful and add value to your followers. Don’t share links only from your website. If you are an expert in your niche, then you probably pay close attention to industry news. Share new and helpful information you discover from other sites.

Humor is also very effective. These tasks don't always have to be serious, and you can have a lot of fun with your ‘work’ if you like. In every industry, every market, no matter what it is, there is a humorous side or a joke to be made. Even posting a funny picture that has nothing to do with your niche can go a long way to help you grow your following!

Sourcing Content

When it’s time to for my daily tasks I already have lots of great stuff lined up and ready to share. It’s all in my inbox. Subscribe to sites that have great content and let the news come to you. Set up Google Alerts on your target niche keywords and have them send to your email or your RSS reader.

Note: In the Automation section of this chapter, you’ll learn that you can automate some of this type of sharing to maximize your time for other tasks. However, it’s a good idea to monitor the news for things you can comment on in your sharing.

Share everything you touch. Not just your articles and videos, often your comments on one social site can be shared on other sites. When you update your LinkedIn status, share it on Twitter. When you leave a comment on a blog or on a YouTube video, share the article or video on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter. Wherever you leave your mark, share, share, share!

TIP: Use the free Twylah ‘Power Tweet’ to share any place you visit online to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and others. To get the Power Tweet button, first sign up for Twylah (free), then search for the Power Tweet bookmarklet instructions.

Indirect Updates

Indirect updates can help build engagement but more importantly can help you get lots of Likes and +1’s. Indirect updates are posts that don’t necessary have anything to do with your niche. They can be humorous images, jokes, inspirational quotes. These get shared like crazy on Facebook and Google+ you should include it in your strategy.

Be on the lookout as you browse through the web or when people share interesting and humorous images or articles. If you see something funny, intriguing shocking, make a note to use it for your daily tasks. Look for content to share on Imgur and Reddit, these sites have an endless supply of hilarious pictures and stories.

Next: Phase I

PHASE 1: PREPERATION AND SET UP

RESEARCH

Phase 1 starts by identifying people you want to model and emulate in your niche. Take notes on topics and posts your models are sharing that are getting the most votes (Likes, Retweets, +1s) on each of the social networks.

Take a close look at tags they are using. These may be good keywords you’ll want to use in on your social account. See if the keywords in tags are being used in post titles and on their profiles. Take note of keywords that appear repeatedly, you may want to use these later in your own profile and posts.

To get the most from you keywords, you can run keywords you’ve discovered through the Google’s keyword tool: https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool. This tool will give you some sense of traffic volume these keywords receive. If they are getting lots of traffic, keep them. Ones that are not getting much traffic many not be worth using.

You can also use the tool to find new keywords that people are already searching for.

This keyword exercise is not an exact science but should give you a little insight into which keywords to focus on.

PROFILES

After your research, you may want to write out your bio ahead of time so you don’t have to come up with one on the fly as you fill in your profiles. Get your wording right and include some of your target keywords if you can. If you use Word or some other text editor, you can simply cut-and-paste your bio into each profile.

The next step is signing up on the big four social networking sites and completely filling in your profile. I assume many reading this already have accounts on these networks, if this is your case, you’ll need to go through your profile to make sure it’s complete.

Note: I recommend having multiple Twitter accounts. Have at least one Twitter account for each of your websites, and one account for your own public persona.

Having complete and professional profiles is a critical; you will be judged by your profiles.

Here are some tips to having optimized and effective profiles:

• Profile Picture - Add a clear picture of yourself, preferably a head shot. It doesn’t have to be a professional shot, but realize that you’ll be instantly judged by your picture.


• Professional Headline/Description - Try to include your targeted keywords in your title and summary. Don’t force your keywords, make sure your headlines and description look natural.
  
  
  
  • On Facebook, you may use the Employers fields for your headline. This appears at the top of your profile and anywhere when people hover over your name.
  
  
  • On LinkedIn, this appears similar to the description you have indicated in your Current Position and appears below your name.
  
  
  • On Twitter, this is your Bio and appears next to your profile picture.
  
  
  • On Google+, this is your Introduction and appears on your profile and in Google Search results.
  
  
  
  


• Links - Each of the big four social networks allows you to have links on your profile. Use them! Link to your primary websites, Facebook and Google+ Pages and your social media profiles.


• On Facebook, be sure to include the http:// on your links to make them clickable.

Next: Seeding Your Accounts

SEEDING YOUR ACCOUNTS

One of the problems with social media is that it can be tough to get followers when you’re just starting out. When you have a low number of followers, circles, connections, Likes, etc., it tells people (perhaps unfairly), two things about you:

• you’re not popular; and


• I’m not going to grow my own network much by connecting you.

These are more reasons to grow your followers as much as you possibly can: a large following is a form of “social proof” to people who don’t know you. Another important reason is that your following becomes an asset that people will want a piece of, and one you can leverage.

It’s much, much easier to grow your social accounts when you have 1,000 connections compared to 10. But how do you make the leap from 10 to 1,000? Here are some ninja tools and tricks that will get you there quickly:

Import Your Contacts

Once you've cleaned your profiles, start seeding your social accounts using your email contacts. Add your Skype, MSN, Yahoo and Gmail contacts to each of your social network accounts.

Note: To add new contacts to Google+, you must add them to your Gmail contacts first. Then you can circle people in your Gmail contact list.
TIP: Import your Facebook friends into Yahoo Mail. If you don’t have a Yahoo Mail account sign up for one for free, it’s worth having for this tip. Then add your Yahoo contacts again to Twitter, Google+ (via Gmail) and LinkedIn. You’re sure to add a few extra contacts to each of these social networks.

OpenNetworker

This site can literally help you add thousands of connections on LinkedIn. Everyone who I’ve introduced to this site has added one to two thousand new connections in just a week or two! Sign up for a free account and then download the available lists of contacts. These are people who want to network and want to be added to your social accounts. Import these email addresses into each of your social networking accounts.

Note: On Facebook, identify yourself as an OpenNetworker, otherwise you may get complains and Facebook may restrict or even ban your account.

OpenNetworker has an optional paid subscription for $50 USD a year that allows you to add your contact information to the download lists (free accounts can only download the lists). For only $50 I feel it’s worth the cost as you’ll get friend new requests every week. One person I referred to this site added about 4,000 connections on LinkedIn alone in just a few months.

Free or paid, you may sign up here: OpenNetworker

Twiends

UPDATE: Tweinds has undergone a number of major changes during August 2013. They removed the auto-follow back feature, which was in response to a change in the Twitter TOS. At this time, they also do not give free seeds, including if you have a PAID SUBSCRIPTION. It's hard to fault them for removing the auto-follow feature, but the timing was terrible for taking away free seeds. Not giving free seeds to VIP's (paid subscribers) also lessens the value of subscriptions.

I'm leaving this part of the article unabridged in case Twiends brings back free seeds. You can still use Twiends to gain followers, but without auto-follow and free seeds it will be slower. If you are interested in learning about an advanced tool I use to grow my followers, please get in touch with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ or Facebook.

Twiends is a free online service for Twitter that allows you to earn credits called “seeds” that you can exchange for followers. It gives people an incentive to follow regardless of your follower ratio.

So you follow people, build up your seeds, and other people follow to earn seeds from you. If it doesn't make sense, just take it from me, it works extremely well in growing followers fast!

After signing up, I recommend you head over to the setting's page and adjust them to be more conservative. This will help minimize unfollows from people who are just out to get seeds and not really interested with connecting with you on Twitter.

This last setting is critical in my view. When you’re getting follows on seeds you’ve built up, you should auto-follow those people back. You automatically earn more seeds since most people on Twiends offer them too.

The process of growing your Twitter accounts can be automated by buying seeds. They have some paid packages for buying seeds. You can walk away, and your account will grow automatically until you run out of seeds!

Now, if you shop similar services, Twiends can seem expensive. You can buy followers, which is another option for much cheaper than this. However, there are risks when you do that, you can get a lot unfollows and inactive accounts following you. Furthermore, it’s against Twitter’s terms of services to outright buy followers.

There are also a number of sites like Twiends that sell seeds cheaper. One is YouLikeHits.com which I’ve used before and is not bad. I've found Twiends to give me the best-quality followers. Also, they have some features I like and return seeds automatically if you've spent them on bad accounts.

Personally, I’ve had great results buying seeds from Twiends and even the smallest package can deliver 2,000 to 3,000 new followers if you have auto-follow turned on.

Facebook Page Likes and Google+ Page +1s

After a few days have passed since importing your contacts into Facebook and Google+, you may start soliciting Likes and +1s. You may want to wait a little longer than a few days to do this step and give your contacts more time to respond to your friend requests.

Once you've gone through these steps you should have a good base network to start with.

Next up: Groups, Pages and Automation...

GROUPS

Facebook and LinkedIn groups are a powerful way to get more connects, engage with your target audience and even get traffic directly to your website from posting in groups.

Find and join LinkedIn and Facebook groups in your niche. Join as many as you can, there’s no commitment or expectation after joining a group. As a member, these groups will be available to you for posting.

There is a limit on LinkedIn to 50 groups you can belong to simultaneously, but that should be enough for most people. On Facebook, the limit is 300.
I also suggest you start your own groups you control. Invite all your connections and friends to join your groups.

TIP: On your own groups, you can add an RSS from your site, so that your articles will post automatically to the LinkedIn group. Not only will your posts show in the group page for members to see, but your posts will also show up in the daily digest that gets emailed directly to members. It’s free email traffic, which is some of the most targeted traffic you can have. This is a very powerful LinkedIn feature that you should take full advantage of.

FACEBOOK PAGES AND GOOGLE+ PAGES

Both Facebook and Google+ give you the option of using each of the networks as your Page. This means when you Like or +1 something, it shows as coming from your Page instead of your personal account.

This is important in growing your Page Likes and +1. As you’ll see in the daily tasks, you will Like and +1 posts and comments as your Page to create interest for your Page.

To use each network as your Page, visit your Page and select the option under Edit Page on Facebook, and on Google+, use the ‘Switch to this page’ button.

Using Facebook and Google+ as your Page, browse through other people’s Pages in your niche and begin Liking, circling and +1ing them. This may get you some Likes and +1s and will send updates to your newsfeeds for easy discussion monitoring later.

AUTOMATION

To maximize your 20 minutes a day schedule, you can leverage some automation techniques to perform some sharing activates for you.

Use free online services such as Dlvr.it or Twitterfeed to auto post to your Twitter and Linked accounts and your Facebook Page from your RSS feed. Use Hootsuite to do the same for your Google+ Page.

Use these services for status update posts to LinkenIn, Twitter and your Facebook Page.

Here’s basically how auto-posting with these services works:

1. Copy an RSS feed from your site.


2. Add these feeds to an RSS auto-poster, like Twitterfeed.


3. Add your social accounts and setup Twitterfeed to post new items on your behalf.

How to use these services is beyond the scope of this article, but there are plenty of free and paid tutorials available to help you get started. Here are few auto-posting tips:

Your own website or blog is great for auto-posting. As soon as you publish a new article it will appear on the big four social sites. You can also set up auto-posted updates on your comments if your site has an RSS feed for them (like WordPress).

Find sites in your niche that produce quality content and use a few of these for auto-posting (more on this in the Content section).

Twitter followers can tolerate lots of updates; Facebook fan usually can’t. You can set up a feed to post as frequently as every 30 minutes for Twitter and you’re sure to get more followers every day. If you did the same with Facebook, you’d likely lose followers. LinkedIn is somewhere in between.
In other words, this strategy is great for Twitter but be careful with Facebook. Set up feeds to post at different frequencies for each social network (which can be set up on both services I mentioned).

When it comes to automation, this is just the tip of the iceberg. As you get comfortable with the technology, you can explore other automation tools and opportunities. Some of the 20-minute-a-day tasks can also be automated but only with paid tools. This is also an option.

If you spend about 20 minutes a day, this phase may take a week or less. This is the heavy lifting of the plan, from here on its easy street.

Next: Phase II...

PHASE 2: DAILY TASKS

The following daily tasks are some of the most effective social media activities you can do in a short timeframe. Of course, you can modify the tasks to fit your needs. Either way, take this opportunity to use a checklist that will provide daily direction and focus.

If you want to outsource your daily social media activities, this gives you a solid task list you can easily assign to a staff member.

Missing from these tasks is direct posting updates to your Facebook Page, Twitter and LinkenIn accounts. That’s because I recommend Dlvr.it, Twitterfeed or any other RSS posting service for these tasks. If you don’t want to use an RSS service for auto-posting, you may add posting updates to your daily plan.

Tasks to grow your audience:

1. Respond to any new comments on your website, LinkenIn posts, Facebook and Google+ Pages, Twitter retweets and mentions. Thank everyone and Like, +1, the original comment, and retweet Twitter mentions and retweets with a ‘thank you. ‘


2. Respond to all open friend requests, connection invitations, follow back new followers and circle everyone who has circled you since the previous day.


3. Sign in to Twiends and then sign out for each of your Twitter accounts. You’ll get 10 bonus seeds and if you have auto-follow turned on, that could mean 10 to 20 followers for each of your accounts every day you do this task.


4. Make at least one new post, or one new comment, in at least one LinkedIn and one Facebook Group.
   
   
   
   1. Tweet your posts using the built-in Tweet button (LinkedIn).
   
   
   2. Like and +1 the entire discussion for more exposure (LinkedIn).
   
   
   3. Like other people’s comments and post a response.
   
   
   
   


5. In Facebook, switch to using Facebook as your Page (see FACEBOOK PAGES AND GOOGLE+ PAGES). Like at least one comment on 20 to 30 Pages in your niche. (This sounds like a lot but it will only take a couple minutes.)


6. Make at least one new post each on your Google+ personal stream and your Google+ Page (the latter can be automated with RSS and Hootsuite).


7. Switch to using Google+ as your Page, then circle 20 to 30 (or any number you’re comfortable with). Find people in your niche to circle who have a strong following.


8. Make an indirect update (e.g., a funny or inspirational picture) to your Facebook and Google+ Page.

If you have time remaining…

9. Using Facebook as a Page, leave a few new comments or respond to someone else’s comment on other Pages.


10. Circle new people on Google+ using your personal page.


11. Answer one question in LinkedIn Answers.

When should you perform these tasks? There have been studies that show the best times to post for maximum views and engagement is the following (US Eastern Times):

1. 7 AM


2. 5 PM


3. 11 PM

It’s for this reason that I like to do my daily tasks first thing in the morning, and on some days, I repeat the tasks in the evening before I shut down my computer. Evenings are good because people are home from work and school.

Of course, this may vary depending on your own networks and where most of them live, when they like to be online, etc. A great tool to use is Crowdbooster, which will analyze your posts and your network, and recommend posting times for maximum effectiveness.

Next: Weekly Tasks...

Phase II: Weekly Tasks

In addition to your daily activities, you need one day each week for tasks that are not needed every day and for a little housekeeping.

Getting More Facebook Page Likes and Google+ Page +1s

To grow your Facebook Page Likes and Google+ Page +1s, there are several online groups and forums you can join that offer ‘Like swaps’: you Like my Page and I’ll Like yours. On LinkedIn, there are numerous groups you may join and add your Facebook Page, Google+ Page and Twitter links. If you are using OpenNetworker (see Seeding Your Accounts), chances are that you’ll be invited to many of these groups.

Join a few of these groups and add your links if your daily Facebook Page and Google+ Page growth is slow.

You may also invite new friends added to your accounts during the week to Like and +1 your Pages.

Housekeeping

You need to purge people who are no longer following you on Twitter and Google+. If your number of followers is disproportionally lower than the number of people you follow, that could send a red flag to potential followers. Twitter will also limit how many people you can add per day. If people see you follow a lot of people but few people are following in return, they are going to wonder why people are not following you back and may assume you’re a spammer or just very unpopular.

To maintain a balance you need to purge some of the people you follow who are not following you back. You also should give people a few days to follow you back. On Twitter, three days is enough, on Google you might go an entire week before you uncircle someone.

Here are a few free tools that will help you keep your accounts balanced:

Twitter: JustUnfollow.com (limited to 50 unfollows per day) or ManageFitter.com (limited to 100 unfollows per day)

Google+: Uncircle Uncirclers+ Chrome extension (doesn’t work for Google+ Pages –must do manually)

Unfollow starting with the people you’ve followed the longest, and limit your unfollowing to just portion of your unfollowers. That way, you’re giving the people you’ve followed recently a chance to follow you back. Make sense? This is hard to articliate, but when you start using these tools, I’m sure it will make much more sense.

Also on Twitter, if you don’t follow people back in a timely manner, they’ll think you’re not interested and quickly unfollow you. So it’s important to stay on top of new followers.

Keep in mind there are paid tools to help manage your social accounts. Tools that auto-follow and auto-unfollow are great because your Twitter accounts can grow so fast that they can be hard to manually keep current.

Note: Automated unfollowing is against Twitter’s terms of service, so use tools that have this feature at your own risk.

Next: Tools....

Phase II: Tools

There are numerous tools, both paid and free, that can help manage your social media activities. These tools range on the low end from making scheduled posts, to helping discover new people to follow, to higher-end products that can nearly automation you’re entire social media strategy.

I recommend you perform your daily tasks manually at least for a few weeks so you can properly judge how these tools work and what they actually do. The worst thing you can do is buy a tool based on hype then discover that there are free tools that do the same things.

One tool I strongly suggest you start using right now is your phone. By using social media apps on your smartphone, you can perform many of your daily tasks whenever you have idle time, such as waiting in line at the bank or at the doctor’s office. This is a great way to turn downtime into highly productive social engagement.

As you’re out running errands, you can stay following back new followers, accept friend requests, respond to comments, and even take interesting pictures for indirect updates. This will free up your time reserved for your daily tasks and allow you to devote more time for heavy lifting activities, which have more pay off.

Install the official apps for Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. All are free. In addition, install the official Pinterest app and any other apps that help you share content.

Tracking

You’ll need to keep track of your activities to evaluate their effectiveness. This information can be used to make any necessary adjustments to your tasks or schedule.

In the beginning, your goal may be to grow your networks. There are certain tasks that take longer than others, it’s important to know how much are these tasks contributing to your growth. This may be hard to gauge, if you suspect an activity is inefficient, give a break for a week and see if your growth rate is affected.

If your goal is to drive traffic to a website, get leads or make sales, those metrics may be easier to measure. Google Analytics can tell you how much traffic is coming from each of the social networks. You can also create campaigns in Google Analytics to measure leads and sales or use click-tracking software.
Facebook and Google have analytics to show Page engagement and which posts are getting the most views.
For Twitter, pay attention to what type of posts are being Retweeted and Favorited.

If you are auto-posting with Dlvr.it (see Automation) you’ll get free analytics that will report how many clicks each of your post received. This is extremely valuable information that can steer you in making posts that bring maximum results. Twitterfeed also offers some free stats, but they are not as robust as Dlvr.it.
Take note of patterns in what type of content your networks are responding to. Use this data to give them more of what they like.

Add your social accounts to Klout. Klout will analyze your social activity and calculate a “social credit score," and indicator of your reach and engagement. Klout can also be used to grow your networks. You can give people ‘K’s, which are Klout votes in categories of expertise. Use your Ks to reach out to people who have large followings to get their attention and follow you. If you have solid social accounts (optimized profiles, balanced following), you have a good chance of getting a followed by a social media leader when you hand out Ks.

The previously mentioned Crowdbooster can provide you with the best times to post to reach those already in your networks. Recommendations are based on analytics of your posting, not on surveys or studies. It’s based on hard data you can take action on.

Next up: Phase III...

PHASE 3: MAINTENANCE

This is an optional phase. If you’re comfortable with your daily social pace, then there’s no reason to change what you’re doing. I encourage you to keep it up!

However, if you’ve been pushing yourself to reach a level of growth, and you’ve reached your objective, then you may want to reduce the intensity. Adjust your daily tasks to focus only on the activities that use the least amount of time and provide continued engagement and some growth.

Beyond the Plan

The intention of this article was to provide you with a foundational plan to follow and execute every day. I continuously come across people using social media but not getting anywhere, because they don’t know where they are going. By now I hope you know exactly where you’re headed.

Of course, you can be much more aggressive with your social media activities than what was proposed in this article.



For example, you can grow your Twitter account faster by following 100-200 new people a day, same with Google+. This was not recommended in the daily plan because it causes two problems with new and smaller accounts:

• When people see a disproportionate amount of followers compared to followed, they assume that you are not popular or a spammer, and thus many will not want to follow you back.


• Twitter will restrict your account from following new people when your ratio of followed to followers reaches about 10%. (The ratio is not published, but in my experience, it seems to be about 10%.)

Once you reach enough followers, say 1,000, you can start to get more aggressive in growing your following. Keep in mind that you have to manage your ratio and use tools such as JustUnfollow.com or ManageFitter.com to purge non-followers each week (or every day if necessary).

As mentioned earlier, there are a number of paid services and very sophisticated tools that can accelerate your growth and automate your activity. This might be the next level in your business, or outsourcing your tasks to VAs.

Add more social posting to your plan. Post your article images to Pinterest if you haven’t already started. Create YouTube videos. Experiment with StumbleUpon, Reddit. These are all social sites that have brought in a ton of traffic for my sites.

You now have a plan, and in executing these tasks everyday you’ll gain an intimate knowledge of social media and your audience. Soon you’ll know exactly what you need to do next to achieve greater goals for your business using social media.

Android Fragmentation Will Never End

Gingerbread remains majority share holder for Android OS

Another report of the state of Android Fragmentation has come out and Ice Cream Sandwich is now at 23.7% and Jelly Bean is at 1.8%. The two combined have finally broken the 25% barrier and are going to continue to rise. But that rise is dependent on new devices being purchased to make that shift. The Galaxy S3 has done a lot to move the percentages higher with its great sales. But that is only one device among the large number of phones and manufacturers in the market. While we are now approaching the 1 year mark for Ice Cream Sandwich being available, being at only 23.7% is not speaking volumes for the version of Android. Even the recent Jelly Bean seems to be growing faster an Ice Cream Sandwich did.

Android Fragmentation has been a topic of conversation for the past few years. And it is not going to go away. It will continue to be discussed for many years, primarily because of the market place that it supplies the Android OS to. Unlike Apple, which controls both the hardware and the OS, Google must handle many different layers in order to provide their Ice Cream Sandwich and of late Jelly Bean to new phones. Apple is in control of the process and can chose to bypass wireless carriers in order to maintain a level of control not achieved by Google or even Microsoft with the Windows Phone OS. For Google, there are just plain too many layers they have to go through to get a phone updated with the latest OS.

One of the other big problems is that many of the phones which are able to support Gingerbread cannot support Ice Cream Sandwich, limiting the ability to reduce the fragmentation which is going on. And that is going to continue to be a problem until those phones limited to Gingerbread are retired. But that is not going to happen any time soon. Gingerbread OS phones are still being sold today and that does not look like it is going to be altered. Cheaper mobile devices will not support Ice Cream Sandwich and that is a fact.



Is there a solution for Google to try and resolve the adoption of Ice Cream Sandwich? There may be, but it will take far more effort that Google is probably willing to do. The current process works with Google releasing a new version, such as Jelly Bean. That version is then released to manufacturers who then test it on their mobile phones and add their pieces to it. Once that is done, the manufacturers turn it over to the wireless carriers who then add their pieces to the OS until it is finally ready to be released to owners of a particular phone. It is not in the best interests of wireless carriers to keep putting out updates. I have been with Verizon for a number of year and can expect to see only 1 significant update to the OS. For the Galaxy S3, that will be Jelly Bean. I would like to see what comes after Jelly Bean, but past history says that will probably not happen.

The solution for some of this may be to cut out the addition of all the pieces to the Android OS. The Nexus phone is pretty much a pure Android OS and Google could go down the path of trying to implement the idea of a pure OS being distributed to the owners of mobile phones. But doing that is going to take a lot of effort from Google to get those agreements from manufacturers and wireless carriers. That entails a lot of discussions and negotiations.

It is doubtful that we are going to ever see the Android Fragmentation issues ever be resolved as some hardware is never going to support the current Android OS, what ever it is. The goal should be to see a majority of the Android devices being on the latest OS within 1 year of its release. For Ice Cream Sandwich, that is not going to happen. And for Jelly Bean, it does not look likely right now.

Until Google alters the current working model for distribution of updates, Android Fragmentation will continue.

Google Fiberhoods Creating Digital Divide In Kansas City

Even with the right intent, the consequences create problems.

Google's decision to provide fiber to homes was received with great fanfare. For the expectation, initially, was that everyone would have access to fiber to the home in Kansas City. But that is not exactly how things are working out for access to fiber. As you can see above from the Google fiber site, this is a great deal for Kansas City. Pricing and services are excellent and you get great speeds associated with Google fiber. But as they say, the devil is in the details. And the details appear to be creating concern for some. There are even reports that some schools may not get the fiber service because of how this is being handled.

With the paid Google Fiber services, you get a Google Drive at 1TB included which is a good deal. Why wouldn't everyone want to jump on this and take advantage? This question appears be the heart of the matter. At the moment, it is all about sign ups, or pre-sign ups, at this point. It appears that people have been slow to register as you can see from the Google fiber tracking map. And if there are not enough people signing up, Google will move that neighborhood to the back of the line. And it is that situation which will add to the digital divide.

This divide in Kansas City is pretty much along the richer and poorer neighborhoods. And that is where the digital divide exists in so many cities across the US. As a result, Google is creating neighborhoods with Google fiber and making things worse by create literally classes of people. Those who have and those who have not. Google has even lowered the number of household sign ups in a neighborhood in order to be more inclusive. While that has helped, it still is creating situations where people are not going to be getting Google fiber and the fiberhood.

While there are costs associated with laying fiber in neighborhoods, such as digging trenches, it seems that Google is now focusing on those where they are going to be getting the most return on their investments. That is far different than how it was viewed when first announced. Here we are on the verge of them beginning construction and the realities are starting to show up. If you want to get free Internet, you have to pay the $300 in start up fees. For those who are paying for better services, there are no start up fees. And in that situation lies the problem.

If Google was really willing to provide services, they would wave the start up fees based on income. Foe those in lower income areas, which are not meeting the registration numbers, they can ill afford to pay the $300. It is those kinds of things which are creating this new digital divide in Kansas City.

Google has also agreed to provide connections to Public institutions, which includes the schools in the neighborhoods where they are rolling out their fiberhoods. But, if the lower income neighborhoods are not going to get the fiber to their homes, that means that the schools are not going to be getting the free fiber services as well. We add to the coming digital divide in Kansas City as a result.

Access to the Internet has become an important part of everyone's life. But not everyone has that access. In the US, the cost to families for that connectivity is not cheap and it was hoped that we would see things begin to change across the US with lower prices and faster speed. In Korea, they have blanketed the country with fiber. Here is the US we are just beginning. And is seems that the digital divide is going to continue.

Google And Apple Finally Working To Solve Differences

It seems that Apple has been attacking Google indirectly by suing companies which are using the Android OS. The most recent case was the Apple v Samsung in which the verdict last week sided with Apple. It looks as if the Android OS is the intended target for Apple, but they have not gone after Google yet. And that may be the reason for reports (or rumors) of the 2 companies actually talking right now.

Much of the information is speculation and rumors with a little facts thrown it. But with all the lawsuits going on, these two need to figure out a way to resolve their differences and come to some sort of an agreement. The reports have Tim Cook and Larry Page talking about the patent disputes which relate to Apple and Google. This is based on an unnamed source about a phone conversation that the two had. While Apple has not directly sued Google, Google has gone after Apple based on patents they now own from the Motorola Mobility purchase. Apple is appealing a recent loss to Motorola Mobility in Washington.

All of this seems a little strange since Steve Jobs issued his willingness to have a thermonuclear war against Google. It seems that things are a little different at Apple now. The continuing lawsuits have to be costing the company a lot of money. And with Google now owning Motorola Mobility, they have a lot more leverage to protect themselves against Apple. And their recent suit against Apple is posing issues for Apple to defend. Though you never know where those things will end up. Just ask Samsung.

On the Motorola Mobility suit, it seems that Google was forced to file because of Apple's unwillingness to discuss licensing agreements. And that is more than likely an accurate statement. In the Apple v Samsung case, it came out that Samsung was trying to negotiate a licensing agreement and it never got very far. Seems that Apple may not be willing to sign licensing agreements. But that may now be changing and would help the entire industry if things could get resolved between Apple and Google.

While a possible settlement or agreement may be a long ways off, it does seem like a long shot. The current attitudes at Apple seem to indicate they are happy with the pot of money that they currently have and do not care about licensing agreements right now. That has been the trend there for a number of years. The only thing that will change that is a string of losses by Apple in various court cases here in the US and around the world. That might soften their attitudes and willingness to settle cases and obtain license agreements.

Given the growing smart phone markets, there is a lot of money involved. And there is a lot at stake with all the patents that each company has. In some respects this seems to look a little like a game of chicken to see who will be the first one to blink. Thus far, Apple has blinked the least. But, a threat by Samsung to sue Apple when the next iPhone comes out over LTE patents may start to change that. Thus far Apple's team of lawyers have been fairly successful. But if Samsung prevails in an LTE suit against Apple and possibly gets the iPhone 5 banned from sale, that could be huge. And it will force Apple to start taking licensing deals.

It seems that only mounting losses from lawsuits may be the only way to get these large companies to sit down and talk. What do you think?

The Desire For Google's Self Driving Vehicle

No accidents reported thus far for the self driving car.

Google's efforts to bring a self driving car have made it to another milestone. And it is one that shows just how viable the idea of cars driving themselves really is. They are reporting they have completed over 300,000 miles of testing the cars without a single accident. The only accident that one of their self driving vehicles sustained was when someone took it off the computer and was diving it themselves. That is quite a feat to accomplish and shows us that this will be coming in the future.

Google started their tests with the Toyota Pruis and as you can see by the picture have upgraded to the Lexus RX450h which they have added to their fleet. While most of us have never seen one of the Google self driving vehicles, we can expect them to become more visible as they start to expand their testing in other areas. As they are reporting from the Official Blog, they are now moving the cars into day to day usages. This includes being used for the daily commute to work for some employees.

They will also be expanding the testing to other areas to make sure that it can handle things like driving in snow, which could pose some problems. They also need to deal with day to day issues such as the numerous construction projects we see around California. There are probably a number that you can think of as well which they will need to test.

How long it will be before all of us may have the ability to have one of these self driving cars is not known. There is still a lot of testing which is going to have to happen, along with at least a million miles of testing in all kinds of conditions without any mishaps by the cars. And that is a big challenge to prove out this new technology which Google is working on.

We know that it will be at least 3 to 5 years before they are going to start talking about selling or leasing this kind of technology to the public. We know that this will definitely reduce accidents and make the roads safer when large numbers of them are on the road. But, until that time, we can only dream.

Wonder when Google is going to start taking pre-orders?