2012 February

If you use anything Google, including Gmail, you probably received notice of Google’s new privacy policy and terms of service. You may also be privy to the controversy surrounding this change. Google says combining your information across its products will help serve up exactly what you’re searching for. Some see this “trans-product” information collection as an invasion of privacy. Many news sources like Forbes, Gizmodo, and The Washington Post have covered the different sides of the argument. You may have even contributed your own thoughts.

We’ve been talking a lot about gamification lately. You can’t blame us, it’s going to be big this year. With that said, I wanted to share an interesting analogy that takes us right back to our childhood and an obsession we are seeing today.

Growing your organization or business with the help of social media requires informed strategic thinking and time. The more informed and strategic the approach, the less time it should take to get traction in the online social universe. The quest to increase Friends, Likes, Followers, and Connections, to build a community, is one leg of a 4-legged stool. The second leg is page interaction with those friends. The third leg is the viral sharing of your messages and the fourth is conversion – your social media followers doing business with you. These desired results are far more likely to happen if you adhere to a few sociological principles.