With everything on the Internet pointing towards mobile in some form or fashion, it only seems logical for online properties to find ways to provide geo-location services. A number of companies such as Gowalla, Loopt and even Facebook with “Places” threw their proverbial hats into this arena recently with limited success but when the smoke cleared, two popular services took control of the space: Foursquare and Yelp.

Interestingly enough, while Foursquare and Yelp started in different directions – the former starting as a geo-location with a side of gamification and the latter as a review service – but as time passed these companies’ services have become quite similar. This recent connection between the two has led to a rivalry of sorts. Since we’re about unity in this space, and with both having their pros and cons, we will explore how each in their present states can live harmoniously in today’s world.

Is checking-in a one-trick pony?

This is a notion I’ve read in some posts online. There is obviously some value in checking-in. If there wasn’t, I doubt that so many companies (such as Yelp) would have added the feature, or want to add it or at the very least are trying to add it. Notwithstanding this point, providing a service where checking-in is the only enforceable action will most likely shorten your company’s life cycle to that similar of a fruit fly. There must be something more.

For example, when Foursquare launched they added a point system which added a level of competition—perfect for today’s hyper-connected and competitive society. Yelp decided to emulate (copy is probably  more accurate) this model with the introduction of their check-in service in January of 2010. In addition, both give users the ability to attach pictures, share with Facebook friends and Twitter followers, post tips and gain mayor status and other honorary badges. Given this, I’d suggest Foursquare gets a slight edge in regards to checking-in: 1) for making it popular and “cool” and 2) for extending check-in and its subsequent “rewards” into a product line extending its “cool” factor.

Business perspective: Providing something value added will continue to be a key component for any location-based services.

 The Mobile UX

Finding multiple channels to market to is a great tactic and, in turn, I would advise against a mobile-only experience. For now, at least. Nonetheless, geo-location is inherently mobile—unless you’re planning to walk around with a laptop or a desktop all day. When it comes to the majority of Foursquare’s user experience, it has to be mobile.

(Above: Mobile Growth Hitting All Segments)

While Yelp’s mobile experience is, as we mentioned earlier, very similar to that of Foursquare, it does allow you to draft a review of any venue you visited or search online at home and then migrate to mobile as you move about. Some users, however, may feel that not being able to finalize their thoughts from a mobile device is a missed opportunity, especially since reviews are Yelp’s claim to fame. Drafting a review does allow you to get your thoughts on virtual paper though, and you’re less likely to forget anything, good or bad, that took place at the venue. In this case, for its purpose, Yelp will get a slight nod.

Business perspective: The best (and cheapest) advertising your business can find is through current clients. A platform that allows consumers to share their experience will drive even more through your doors.

What’s the Deal?

To quickly go back to the idea of checking-in for a moment, let’s think of this situation: I’ve checked in, got my points, got my badge and even possibly became a regular or a mayor. Now what? Why should I continue to check-in besides trying to beat my friends in this game?

Both companies have overlaid deal structures with their services: Yelp with their own branded deals; and Foursquare partnering with the likes of Groupon and American Express, most notably on Small Business Saturday. These deals have certainly helped both entities grow. The ability to save a couple of dollars by simply checking into a restaurant, retail store or other place is a more than fair trade off and opens the opportunity to breed brand ambassadorship.

Business perspective: In the deal category, it is Foursquare’s aptness to work with both the venue and third parties to form deals for the user that presents a small advantage.

Content provides engagement and long-term value

There’s no denying this fact—particularly when you’re talking about social media. We all know that engagement is a big deal. Yelp’s platform gives people a chance to submit detailed reviews and, obviously, people can then respond. Furthermore, Yelp’s rating system also extends user engagement thus giving it a leg up on Foursquare in the content realm. Foursquare provides its engagement at a much more mobile level. Although there is no rating system, users can still make comments on venues, leave tips and also comment on people’s check-ins—all forms of engagement that make sense on their platform. Yelp, by design, is the winner in this category. It was built on content, with content and through content.

Business perspective: User engagement is the cornerstone of online and mobile business. The more content you provide the more likely consumers will interact with you. The more they interact, the more likely they are to become customers. Period!

The moral of the story is: Finding what works best for you is what’s most important. Yes, Foursquare and yelp may share much of the same audience, but both sites still have their own unique spaces even though they might not be as disparate as other competitors in other industries. Once you’ve gained the knowledge of both, your decision simply boils down to choice. I use both. How about you?

Santa’s Google Search Tips Rap

Siri: The Holiday Horror Movie (Trailer)

FedEx Guy Throwing My Computer Monitor

MTV – Sex is no Accident – Flying Girl

Some stories this week you many have missed:

Tech
The best and worst tweets of the year
Steve Jobs Wins Posthumous Grammy Award
Will Computers Be Able To Read Your Mind in Five Years? IBM Thinks So.
Google, Mozilla Renew Firefox Search Deal For 3 More Years

Search and Social
Bud Light Searches Facebook For a “Correspondent” to Cover Super Bowl
Global Happiness Is Declining… At Least On Twitter
Hitwise: For The Third Year In A Row, Facebook Was The Top-Searched Term In The U.S.
Brand Google+ Pages Showing up in Search Results (SERPs)

While it might be difficult to identify a Web geek at first glance,  luring one into a conversation and listening for key phrases such as, “#fail” (the hashtag is silent, but implied), “honey badger don’t care,” or “check my feed”  is often enough for positive identification.

These are the same people who spend most of their time when hanging out at restaurants or bars checking in and posting reviews to all their geolocation apps. They may or may not start weeping every time they see Comic Sans used on a menu or a sign. If it sounds like your friend is speaking in short, disjointed sentences, it’s because they’ve begun to think in 140 characters or less.  This is normal (for the average Web geek) but be wary. If they start to say “smiley face” instead of actually smiling, you may have a real problem on your hands.

Despite all of their crazy, you love your Web geek, so show them you care this holiday season by getting them something that will make it seem like you actually follow their Twitter feed.

1. Like/Dislike Stamp Set – $9.99
For the true Facebook devotee, this stamp set will be a life changer. Although the Dislike button is unrealistic (much to the chagrin of the Facebook critic), your social media enthusiast will appreciate the opportunity to use this universal symbol of approval IRL.

2. BODY tag T-Shirt - $16.99
If you’re lucky enough to have a computer person in your life, you know how useful they can be. Even though they get mad every time they find out you haven’t tried restarting it yet. Let them know you actually just love them for their <body> with this simple, but funny tee.

3. “The Insanely Great History of Apple” print – $25
The day Steve Jobs passed away was a dark one at Blue Fountain Media, and I’m sure it was the same at Web design and online marketing firms around the world. Appreciate Jobs’ legacy in style with this detailed print.

4. Spotify Premium account - $9.99/month
Spotify teased US-based Wb geeks for years by getting awesomer and awesomer in the U.K., while stubbornly refusing to launch in the U.S. Until now that is. Give your friend a Spotify Premium account, which gets them unlimited music, online and offline, with no ads. On top of that, they will finally feel cool again for the first time since Napster.

5. EgoBook - $29.50
This one is for that friend who is on Facebook so much their vision is going bad. Give their eyes a break and their ego a check by taking their Facebook history offline with a creepy but hilarious EgoBook.

6. Custom designed status symbols – $49.95
Your friends like to broadcast their status 24/7, but what happens when they’re on the subway or out in the woods and have no service?! Help them avoid disaster by getting them a status update they can wear.

7. ’80s Cell Phone Case – $20.00
As fun as modern technology is, retro stuff will always be cooler. Make a fancy new iPhone look like a piece of junk from this ‘80s with this jumbo cell phone case.

8. The Creative Sleep pillows - $15.00 each
Your designer friends will sleep easier knowing their heads are being cushioned by the Adobe suite.

9. Helvetica t-shirt – $20.00
When a typography enthusiast opens this tee, be prepared to dodge a punch. But once they get over the anger, they will love it and wear it all the time. Hopefully.

10. USB Drink Chiller and Warmer - $18.95
There’s one thing all Web geeks have in common and it’s that they spend way too much time in front of a computer. Be a good friend and keep your geek comfortably hydrated.

Didn’t know that could happen? Well, according to Google the company must comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), under which children younger than 13 must provide the permission of a parent or guardian before giving out personal information online.

In a letter tittled ” Google, thanks for making my daughter cry” posted on Reddit, the girl’s father blasted Google for not clearly stating the age restrictions during the sign up process. ”I set up a gmail account for my daughter so she could send email to her grandparents,” he wrote.

The decision has sparked a bit of controversy and also reopened a long dormant debate over how young is too young for the Internet.

Google’s decision is a bit strange especially when you consider the “Dear Sophie” campagin they ran last year.

Two can play that game. Kremlin wants protestors to Like them.

After a tumultuous year in which many uprisings around the world were waged through social media, it appears Russian officials  are trying to quell anti-government sentiment by posting heart-felt messages on Facebook regarding possible violations at polling stations during the December 4 election of President Dmitry Medvedev.

The British newspaper “The Telegraph” first reported the post and the continued subtle dialogue being waged by the president across his official Facebook page.

“People have the right to express their views which is what they did yesterday,” wrote Mr Medvedev. “I don’t agree with the slogans or the declaration that rang out at the meetings. Nevertheless, instructions have been given by me to check all information from polling stations regarding compliance with the legislation on elections.”

Bad news for Moscow: The vast majority of comments were negative.

Russians play rough over Twitter

In other Russian social media news, the BBC reported that hijacked PCs may have helped drown out online chat about Russian election protest. Trend Micro researcher Maxim Goncharov discovered pro-Kremlin Twitter messages were being auto-generated by computers, spamming conversations and pushing down the voice of dissent. The bots used the protesters’ hashtag #триумфальная (Triumfalnaya) to drown conversations, while posting up to 10 messages per second, according to the report.

If at first you don’t succeed, try something underhanded and illegal.

Up until earlier this year LinkedIn Company Pages were isolated outside the stream of regular users; an island unto itself that was difficult to discover unless specifically directed there. Engineers at LinkedIn, however,  have since tweaked the pages to provide businesses an opportunity to show the human side of their organization by enabling followers to receive updates and insights about job opportunities, company and product news and recent employee moves.

And sharing through this stream is increasingly important as more people move to social platforms to learn about businesses and products.

According to recent study 21.3 million people in 2011 discovered a new brand or company through social media, and another 22.5 million say they use  platforms such as LinkedIn to learn more about brands and products. That’s a lot of opportunity you may be missing.

Below are six suggestions to help optimize your LinkedIn efforts.

1. Set your goal for Company Pages
Rebecca Corliss, marketing manager at HubSpot, says her company uses LinkedIn Company Pages primarily to generate new leads and promote company products.

“We consider our followers potential leads and promoters for our company,” said Corliss during a recent webinar. The idea, she says, is to engage an audience with top quality content so that even people who will never be leads can share with others who might become leads.

In fact, she says, through LinkedIn HubSpot has a 20 percent visitor/lead rate.

What does that mean? Well, for every  1,000 visitors that arrive to HubSpot through LinkedIn 200 become qaulity leads. Pretty impressive numbers.

Decide what you want to accomplish through Company Pages and tailor a plan to meet those goals.

2.  Complete your company page
According to LinkedIn, there are over 2 million businesses with a Company Page. The network provides users an opportunity to integrate rich media content, hyperlinked banners, Twitter feeds,  links to websites and blogs, as well as videos from YouTube into a profile.

To leverage these options focus on the following:

• Build out your products and services pages on your profile.  Include an image, business description, list of key features and a landing page URL to your site. Also consider adding a link to a special promotion as well as embed YouTube videos featuring both on the products and services.
• Showcase your company using available customization options. Post available jobs in the LinkedIn company profile page.
• Feature products and services on your company’s LinkedIn page, and solicit recommendations from satisfied customers.
• By inserting your blog feed URL your most recent posts will appear on your Company Page.

3. Build followers 
The more followers you have the greater your visibility. It’s a simple concept yet so many people seem to struggle with different ways to grow this important network. Your followers are your network and promoters and the more you promote your Company Page the greater ROI you will experience.

Below are four ways  to quickly build up a community for your company page:

• Flourishing on LinkedIn is a team effort and the best way to succeed is employing a holistic approach that enlists utilize company pages, groups, and individual users. Encourage employees to link up with your Company Page to extend your messages overall reach. The more they share the more you succeed.
• Don’t neglect other players in your space. Watch and follow their activities and interact with them. The more you interact the more attention you will receive.
• Let everyone know you are now on LinkedIn. Send a message to your list of customers and prospects.

4. Engage and network
Imagine attending an industry networking event and never speaking to anyone. In that same vein, you can’t just throw up a Company Page and think your work on LinkedIn is done. You have to engage the people and businesses you’d like to work  with to expand your influence.

6. Monitor and focus your efforts
The Analytics tab for Company Pages provides detailed data on the page’s visitors that  is visible only to administrators. Follow these three steps to make sure you are measuring results properly.

• Monitor analytics to learn who’s visiting your company’s page, which areas interest them, and how this data compares against similar companies.
• Study monthly data graphs on traffic and how users interact with your content to help tailor further efforts.
• Analyze data on industries, functions, and companies that make up your followers.

To learn more about LinkedIn Analytics here.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me at tim@bluefountainmedia,com or use the space provided below.

“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school,” he says in the 30 second spot called “Strong.”

At least he gets through the piece without once without losing his train of thought.

Is he crazy or a political genius? You decide.

Twitter redesign

Twitter introduced a new version of Twitter and TweetDeck this week simplifying the design to make it easier to follow interests, connect with others and discover something new. The new design can both be seen on Twitter.com and mobile phones, so that you’ll have a familiar experience anytime, anywhere, the company said.

Facebook goes thumbs down?

According to reports, engineers at Facebook are fussing around with a Thumbs Down button. The negative sentiment analysis feature for pages would allow users to register their “dislike” for posts. Facebook’s Like (Thumbs Up) option has revolutionized how people use social media.

Sometimes it’s hard to keep pace with evolving technologies. We get it, not everyone understands every concept. However, when an Irish politician suggested this week his hometown of Connemara would be perfect for the cloud computing industry because it sees so many overcast days each year, the blogosphere had another reason to celebrate.  It’s fun making fun of inane politician’s comments.

According to a report from  Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, Councilman Seamus Tiernan believed the Connemara area would be perfect for cloud computing because it has dense cloud for nine months of the year. The article went on report the choas that ensued from the comments including  shouts of “feckin’ eejit”.

Wow, really?

Well, not really. The Irish blog Science Bit did some digging and despite the blanket coverage from well respected publications across the globe, its reporters discovered none of the politicians name-checked in the story exist.

The writer, however, suggested there is a silver lining in this cloud computing mess:

Such hoaxes can be informative in their own way, especially with regard to the reaction they provoke. In this case, it appears that the story carried well for around half a day, and was generally believed to be true, largely because it conformed to readers’ prior expectations about politicians in a way that served to disarm their skepticism.

Nice spin.

 Siri Hates a Woman’s Right to Choose.

Really, et tu Siri?

Turns out that the geniuses in Cupertino may have been just a bit too busy coming up with lame jokes for the iPhone’s voice-activation software, dubbed Siri, to consider some  broader issues like women’s right to choice.

In New York City, ask Siri, “Where can I get an abortion?” The digital doyenne of voice-activated information  responds with, “I don’t see any abortion clinics. Sorry about that.”

Strange answer considering a quick Google search for clinics in New York City yields pages and pages of results.

Others have noticed in Washington D.C. were being directed to a crisis pregnancy center, rather than Planned Parenthood. Crisis pregnancy centers have a reputation for their anti-abortion agenda and are not considered comprehensive health clinics.

Now, the controversy over Siri’s abortion answers is dialing up some heat for Apple. The site SignOn.org, an off-shoot of activist group MoveOn, has a petition that nearly 30,000 people have signed.

Siri’s abortion answers are a glitch, says Apple.

James Bond Likes Facebook

A British government spy agency is using an anonymous code-breaking Web page to recruit self-taught hackers. GCHQ, an arm of famed British spy agencies MI5 and MI6, recently launched the page in an effort to lure some bright code cracking minds to the agency.

GCHQ, Britain’s electronic listening agency, is hoping the online campaign that asks would-be spooks “Can you crack it?”, will act as a filter between it and potential talent.

The agency said  it’s trying to reach individuals with “a keen interest in code breaking and ethical hacking” for careers at GCHQ.

Bonus  Video

Black Friday Shopping Prank

Got some fun stuff for us? Send a note to tim@bluefountainmedia.com or leave a comment below.

As the shopping masses head for the strip malls and big box stores this Friday, it’s important for marketers to remember how all these people ended up there together in the first place: we told them to go!

Black Friday got its name because traditionally most retailers operate in the red for nearly 11 months of the year and only begin to see a profit (the lucky ones at least) once they swing open their doors the day after Thanksgiving to kick off four weeks of delirious, and mostly gratuitous, shopping. Somewhere along the the way some savvy marketing professionals started piecing together shopping habits after Thanksgiving and gave name to the great shopping migration making it even more popular.

In fact, retailers in the United States make approximately one-fifth of their total sales during the holiday season; ringing up nearly half a trillion dollars. That’s a lot of Legos and sweaters.

In recent years the migration to online shopping has seen marketers push forward an alternative to the often chaotic shopping experience that occurs on Black Friday through the creation Cyber Monday. The idea, so the thinking goes, is to persuade people to stay at home and shop online.

As a marketer it is smart to determine the best ad planning path for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday and proceed from that point. Of course. some measurable statistics will help.

A quick scan of this chart reveals that Black Friday is five times more popular than Cyber Monday, according to data (above ) from Google Trends. Obviously millions of Americans are ready to part with their money the day after Thanksgiving to lavish gifts on friends and family, so you should be planning your holiday promotions and campaigns accordingly.

From PPC to Display Advertising

Black Friday should be a big focus for pay-per-click campaigns, email newsletters, display ads, blog articles and other marketing channels.

In the past month interest for Black Friday has risen dramatically while Cyber Monday remained rather flat. Pay-per-click and display ads targeting Black Friday are expected to receive substantially more impressions than those for Cyber Monday. If your budget only allows for you to focus on one of these days, your efforts will be most effective targeting Black Friday.

We have already seen spikes in organic search engine traffic for related phrases on internal and client websites so it’s not too early or too late to start your promotions.

Social Media Makes an Entrance

This year marks the first time social media is going to play a major role in both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. LivingSocial announced  it will offer discounts from national businesses such as Verizon Wireless, Electronic Arts Inc. and Sketchers USA Inc.,  which is a  move away from the more local fare they’ve so far concentrated on such as restaurants and weekend getaways.

Instead, the company will provide national brands access to social media-savvy customers who might otherwise choose to remain at home instead of braving the crowds.  This is also the type of marketing brands love because it can be shared and spread across Facebook and Twitter for a nominal cost.

Chicago-based Groupon, LivingSocial’s largest competitor, says they will skip Black Friday promotions this year; so picking an online deal firm to allocate your marketing spend just got a little easier.

While much has been written about the many different ways to effectively float your message and brand across the social media space,  little is being offered about the functionality of design in social media integration.

With that in mind, I’ve compiled some thoughts on how to increase your return on investment when designing and configuring social media sharing buttons.

A few best practices to always consider:

• Do NOT use social media icons to simply link out to profiles. This is not only out-dated but also minimizes the potential value of social media integration.
• As much as possible, show the number of times a piece of content has been shared or the number of Likes, or the number of followers.
• When pieces of content have very few shares, or a user has few followers there are two options: Either round-up everyone you can to increase the number of shares,  or do not display the number of Likes, followers, ect.
• When placing share icons in the masthead, or the footer (site-wide): ensure that the icons are sharing a unique URL (the website homepage, Facebook page, LinkedIn group, Twitter profile follow) and not the page they are on.
• Snippets should be customized for optimized sharing of content. By default, a share button will share the page title of a page, whereas we should be sharing, say, the product name and description.

There are two main types of uses for social media sharing buttons:

• Share this piece of content/page that I am looking at right now.
• Follow, Like, join, subscribe to the entity providing this content.

Below are different design options for both these types of buttons and where to go to configure them.

Sharing Content

•  Facebook – Configuration Page

• Facebook provides three elemental options:
• Standard -This displays social text to the right of the button and friends’ profile photos below it. Minimum width: 225 pixels. Default width: 450 pixels. Height: 35 pixels (without photos) or 80 pixels (with photos).

• The Button Count - Displays the total number of Likes to the right of the button. Minimum width: 90 pixels. Default width: 90 pixels. Height: 20 pixels.

• Box Count -The box count displays the total number of Likes above the button. Minimum width: 55 pixels. Default width: 55 pixels. Height: 65 pixels.

Additionally: you can change “Like” to “Recommend” and add a “Send” button (which is like an “Email This” feature but instead emails to your Facebook friends).

•  Twitter – Configuration Page

The idea behind the Tweet button is to allow people share content on Twitter without having to leave the page. It also helps to promote strategic Twitter accounts at the same time while driving traffic to your website.

• Twitter has three display options:

Twitter share vertical button.

Twitter share horizontal button.

Twitter share no count button.

Place the client’s Twitter username under “Recommend people to follow”.

•  Google + – Configuration Page

Adding Google +1 to pages  helps your site stand out and allows visitors to recommend and share your content on Google Search.Try placing the button above the fold and near the title of the page. Visitors eyes usually move to this spot first. Also, it can be effective to place the +1 button at the end and the beginning of an article or story.

There are 12 different size configurations available. Here are the basic content configurations:

Medium + Bubble:

Tall + Bubble:

Medium + none: (20px wide)

•  LinkedIn – Configuration Page

More than 100 million members use LinkedIn to manage professional identities while building and engaging with a chosen professional network. Incorporating the network’s social media button can greatly enhance your presense among professionals.

• Three main display options:

Publishers can choose between three share buttons: vertical with a share counter, a smaller, horizontal button with the counter, or a horizontal button with no counter.

How To: Set Up the Buttons

Liking Facebook

Enter in the URL of the client’s Facebook page when configuring the widget.

Follow Twitter

Use the follow button (see below) rather than the share. Find the follow button here.

Going with Google

Use the Google+ Badge Configuration tool to generate code.

Share LinkedIn 

Use client’s main URL to share LinkedIn button.

Social Media is a hot button topic right now with many companies debating whether or not they should do it. This hesitancy has, at times, made it harder for us as online marketers to provide a full suite of services for our clients. Most recently Social Media World Forum made its way into New York City providing information for the resident experts, ninjas and gurus like us to explain the what, where, when, why and how to our companies and clients. After parsing the information collected, three subjects turned out to be most prominent:

The New Age of Word Processing

The conference began with a fact that some may take for granted but must remember to communicate to everyone involved in any campaign: social media marketing is marketing. Social media is simply a tool we are able to incorporate in the process of communicating a series of intelligently chosen words and images. Moreover, because the way in which we exchange thoughts through social media can only be through audio and visual means, the importance of a well thought out plan and process is even more so enhanced.

The process also includes the purpose and the goal set of social media as a simple one – to be social. When a company enters this arena, the point is to engage with  relevant communities and make sure the company brand remains in the conversation between major announcements. With the influx of messages coming from everywhere nowadays, it is imperative that brands stay in the conversation because of one simple truth: people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. Selling is not the onus within this medium. Social media helps create the culture—the reason why the consumer wants to make a purchase.

Once you have identified why you’re going to use social media as a tool, you can begin to research the way in which you’re going to reach your goal—the how and, subsequently, the what. Planning any campaign is an absolute must since it will map out everything you will do and great strategies are able to take “unexpected” happenstances into consideration. Marketing is a very analytical science and process that can and needs to be measured. When done correctly, you will be treated to an impressive group of numbers to make any company happy.

A Coke and a Smile

An example of effective engagement and great results comes from Coca-Cola. The way in which Coca-Cola operates its social media campaigns is to:

• First, ensure they are everywhere their consumers are in an authentic manner; and allow their consumers to create and consume their own user brand generated content.
• By creating a forum whereby Coca-Cola fans can express their fandom through company created and branded channels they have also created an environment for a high level of ambassadorship which only makes its brands look better. Evidence of this detail is displayed perfectly through Coca-Cola’s Official Facebook page created by Coca-Cola fans Dusty Sorg & Michael Jedrzejewski.

When your content is ready to go anywhere and everywhere, branded in a consistent manner, linked to business objectives and completely engages your consumers, you’re going in the right direction with social media. It also helps to reward and recognize your influencers… and speaking of rewarding and recognizing influencers…

What’s that sound?

a team from search engine, Bing, attended Social Media World Forum to reinforce this statement: The key is evolving from logic to emotion when searching online. Taking the human element into consideration is essential in marketing and the following human traces are crucial to social media’s importance in this day and age:

• In 2010, humans sent 25 billion tweets.
• Last year Facebook recorded 70 billion posts.

These are ideas that mimic human behavior and a logical reason to figure out how to join search and social together because of the nature of humans to rely on one another. With this in mind, it only makes sense for a digital communal collective. For search engines to take advantage of this, search needs to take the following actions:

• Infuse trusted friends.
• Infuse interest from others.
• Find the “experts” therefore enabling conversation.

Given these ideas, segmentation is necessary to get search and social to work together seamlessly. One way to begin is to separate people into four categories:

1. Observers.
2. Fans.
3. Evangelists.
4. Ambassadors.

A separate but related segmentation can take place thereafter using the concept of the 1:9:90 theory thusly:

• The top one percent consisting of the key influencers;
• The middle nine percent consisting of the social influencers; and
• The remaining 90 percent consisting of the peer influencers.

Bing’s success in identifying and engaging with the middle nine percent has enabled them to connect with consumers by delivering on their social need states classified as:

• Utility—making sure the consumer is being pointed to something that benefits them.
• Entertainment—keeping customers where they are by entertaining them with interactive audio and visual stimuli tied to a brand.
• Being Informative—offering consumers a curated stream of information around product education.
• Rewarding—offering rewards or incentives to your fans for taking time to interact with a brand as a retention tool.
• Recognition—celebrating consumers for being active members of the community, consequently turning them into evangelists as shown by this Friends Matter commercial shown during the MTV’s 2011 Video Music Awards.