*808 Girl Media*

Social media is not as influential a source of product recommendations as previously thought, according to a survey by online advertising company ARAnet, conducted by Opinion Research Corp. According to the poll, only 18% of respondents indicated that they prefer to receive their recommendations for products and services. In comparison, 60% cited they rely on information gathered from colleagues, 40% rely on TV broadcasts, and 39% find their recommendations through search.

Clearly, the respondents were allowed to choose more than one answer, which leads me to ask a follow-up question. If so many people are part of social networks, wouldn’t gathering information from your Facebook friends count as “information gathered from colleagues?”

Sure, in the case of “professional” social networking, LinkedIn still reigns supreme, but there are many Facebook users who connect with business colleagues as well. In this case, many of them hold recommendations from business and industry contacts in high regard.

Read the entire article on BtoBOnline.com, and let me know what you think. Would you consider product information gathered from social networks to be “information from colleagues”?

Another informational post from Mashable! This post also originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable is a regular contributor.

As more and more brands/businesses ride the social media marketing wave, one does need to stop and think: “what value am I offering my customers with these soluctions?” More specifically, Mashable poses the question: “What kind of value does a custom Facebook Fan Page offer?” Here are 5 things you should think about when promoting your company on Facebook:

Interactivity
Don’t just put yourself up there so you can say “My business is on Facebook!”. Bad idea. Instead, harness the interactive nature of social networks and offer interactivity on your Fan Page. Facebook is all about sharing, so your Fan Page landing page shouldn’t be passive - your users are going to want to do something on your page. First example: Baby Gap implemented a simple splash page that allows fans to upload pictures of their babies wearing their favorite Baby Gap apparel.

Second example: Home Depot harnessed the sharability of Facebook actions and created the “DIY Gifts App.” When you grant the Home Depot app access, you can share your gift purchases with the recipient and your Facebook friends. Hmm…this could be a good way to ask for help from your friends on DIY projects! :)

Full Website Experience Within Facebook
Example #1: adidas created a fully-fledged multimedia hub on their Facebook Fan Page, complete with photos, videos and events based on your region. Sure, the page is built entirely in Flash and isn’t super interactive, but it sure does look cool. There’s something to be said about experiencing a cool-looking rich media experience without leaving Facebook.

Example #2: Dell integrated a fully-fledged mini-website on their fan page, which presents fans with an integrated site that allows them to customize their new Dell computer without leaving Facebook.

Offer Deals
What will make you successful on Facebook? Having the ability to push out content that your fans and their friends would be interested in. A good way to keep this dialogue going: deals and coupon codes. Walgreens created a landing page that is nicely branded and simply promotes “Exclusive Offers for Our Facebook Fans”. The promotions/coupons are in their actual updates - leaving the deals to Facebook’s built-in functionality.

Of course, the examples in Mashable’s article are for large companies/brands that have vast technical resources - far more than most small businesses. Which highlights the need for an internet marketing consultant. :)

Click here to read the entire article on Mashable.

What I really want to know is, who uses Yahoo anymore? Their search experience leaves something to be desired, and (IMHO) their portal UI is a little bit hectic for my taste. Question on everyone’s mind is: will Facebook ever overtake #1 Google? Something tells me it’s doubtful, but I guess you never really know!

Not sure if this helps the people who are complaining about their coworkers publicly on Facebook, though… :P As it is, people don’t like to hear criticism when it comes to themselves and their work, and advertising that criticism on a public forum like Facebook makes it that much worse!

Interesting article on Mashable.com today regarding a new site called “PleaseRobMe.com” - an aggregator for publicly shared check-ins. PleaseRobMe.com is reminding public check-in users that they are sharing information that could potentially put them at risk.

“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the Internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have ‘friends’ who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the Internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.”

The article reminds all us social networkers out there that stories about status updates that lead to burglaries are becoming more and more common. Not only are gangs turning to social media (story on MyFoxLA.com: http://bit.ly/b0c2RI), burglars are turning to social media to discover new opportunities.

Keep safe, everyone.