Liz LaClair had an awesome job for a long time and a few years ago suddenly found herself out of a job and wondering what was next. She found that her skills were perfect for this new concept called “Virtual Assistants” and formed her company Virtually Helps.

She posted this great story on HowDoYou.com:

“It may sound dramatic, but to a degree .com has saved my financial life. I had lost my favorite job in 2005, and went to another job. Then in 2006 lost that job. Then was without options and any hope for a job. It was in late 2007 I found out there was something called virtual assistants and that I could do that. I had the skills and the software – I just didn’t know HOW to let anyone “out there” know I was here. In February 2009 I started my business – Virtually Helps, LLC. Your company has been a big help. I had no idea how to make a website, or what keywords and their importance were. Not to mention – what’s a Google ranking? I learned that the social networking sites weren’t just for nonsense stuff, that I could actually make business contacts this way. Because of this knowledge I found a business coach, she’s helping me with marketing. She’s the one who told me to write the articles to help me get seen! All of these things used to be done face-to-face, mail, and travel. Now much of this is done via the internet and having a .com business! This is a great way to help a small business – with no financial capital – get noticed and get business. Now, all I need is more business!”

Here is an article about Liz and her business:

Truly inspirational. It goes to show you that with a focus on what you love, a drive to succeed and a great .com address you too can do what only you mind can imagine. Go and visit Liz’s business at http://www.virtuallyhelps.com/ and tell her you heard about her from Network Solutions and HowDoYou.com.

n a move probably aimed at Linkedin Questions Facebook today launched a beta version of Facebook Questions. usually you can ask questions of your network using your wall and that appears in the ffed of anyone who is connected with you unless they have chosen to hide you ( Yes that has happened to me) Now this feature gives you a chance to search for, answer or ask for help from the Facebook community outside of your network if they chose to look for the topic.

One added feature i found interesting off the bat is the ability to add a poll to your question. That would be useful inc ase you don’t want to answer in words and still want to participate.

Here is what Facebook has to say on their blog:

Millions of people ask their friends questions on Facebook every day. What new music should I listen to? Where’s the best sushi place in town? How do I learn to play the piano?
Today we’re introducing Facebook Questions, a beta product that lets you pose questions like these to the Facebook community. With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.
Since we like to develop products carefully over time with your help, Facebook Questions is available to a limited number of people right now, and we’ll be developing it rapidly based on their feedback. We’re aiming to bring this product to all of you as quickly as we can.

Ask Anything, Get Quality Answers

Facebook Questions helps you tap into the collective knowledge of the more than 500 million people on Facebook. For example, if you’re vacationing in Costa Rica and want to know the best places to surf, you can use Facebook Questions to get answers from nearby surfing enthusiasts. Because questions will also appear to your friends and their friends, you’ll receive answers that are more personalized to you.
To ask a question to the community, just click the "Ask Question" button at the top of the homepage. You can also ask questions about your friends from their profiles, similarly to how you would post on their Walls.

In conferences for small  business i advice experts to look for and anser questions and if they give good answers their validity as an expert increases and that in turn may lead to traffic back to their profile and their business What do you think of this new feature?

Shashi Bellamkonda is Director – Social Media & Social Media Swami of Network Solutions a company that works together to help small business succeed online with web hosting, do-it-yourself website builder software, online marketing tools and domain names. VisitShashi Bellamkonda’s blog. Shashi is a regular contributor to the DC Examiner and Tech Cocktail. This article contains the opinions and observations of the author and may not necessarily reflect those of Network Solutions or its clients or partners.

First published in my DC Social Media Examiner column.

Folks,

We wanted to bring to your attention a phishing email that some of our customers have received in the past few hours.  The email appears to come from support@networksolutions.com, with the subject line: “McAfee VirusScan Plus”.

The text of the message encourages the recipient to download an installation file for a “FREE  30 day trial of  McAfee VirusScan Plus,” and be “automatically entered to win.”

This email was not sent to you by Network Solutions. Someone has spoofed our email address and is sending this unauthorized email.  If you have received this email, please DO NOT click on any of the links or install the attached file on your computer. The links and attached file could contain malware or a virus that could infect your computer.  We strongly recommend that you delete the email immediately.

Unfortunately, phishing scams are becoming more and more prevalent on the Internet.  If you have questions, advice or ideas, please leave a comment here on our blog.  Here are some other resources where you can learn more about Phishing:
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/identify.mspx
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt127.shtm
http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html
http://www.businesswritinginfo.com/?p=302
http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/emailscams_0905.pdf
http://www.commoncraft.com/phishing

There’s something “meta” about trying to understand geo-location. With more companies out there building applications and services that rely on a user’s location, the one thing that seems to be unclear is whether location is a novelty “feature” or perhaps something that you can utilize as a business. Sure, you have great companies like SimpleGeo and Google exploiting the power of location, but what do others think about it? Someone must know whether or not it’s more than just a “flavor of the week”, right? This was just one of the things discussed at the Geo-Loco conference in San Francisco last Wednesday during the panel (aptly named) “Is geo-loco a business or a feature?” featuring notables like SimpleGeo’s head Matt Galligan, Closely’s Perry Evans, Greylock’s David Thacker, Twitter’s Othman Laraki and Nokia’s Gary Gale.

So is there a business model for geo-location or is offering location perks a feature that networks and other more established services should offer? Some of the people on the dais seem to think that if there’s a gap and a business need that should be filled, then yes, geo-location is a business. For networks like Facebook that might be looking to create a location-based service check-in, then I would have to say that it is tantamount to being a feature. But for Google, geo-location is essentially a business for them because their map service and Google Latitude is solely based around your location.

So if you’re looking to start a business that is centered around geo-location, is there even room for you to be there? Have the big businesses in the field managed to corner the market and erect such huge barriers to entry that no other companies can exist? According to Gale, it really depends – what he means by that is if there are gaps and you can see a way in, then go forward and build that application or service. Look for ways to exploit the needs that aren’t being serviced by the large companies. For a company like SimpleGeo, they looked at the needs in the industry and pivoted away from their original goal. They originally wanted to be the creators of geo-targeted games, but soon saw a need to be a facilitator and distributor of geodata for location-based services. However, compare that to Twitter where they have become an established business and now are extending themselves to displaying more location-based tweets – is this a feature? I’d say yes. Is this also a business? Yes. Features can also be businesses as well.

From what I can see, to blanket all location-based services as being focused more on features is a bit rough. Instead, they should be considered businesses because geo-location can be as broad as social media and then offer features within that business. After all, if we keep with the social media comparison, a lot of services could use location data as a means of finding yourself or your friends. Social media is a means of communicating and having either real-time or near real-time conversations. But within social media, there are other features and businesses that grow out of it including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Who’s to say that with geo-location that large name companies can’t emerge from this concept? You already have Google Maps, Foursquare, Gowalla and even GPS devices.

But I suppose that it can’t be as black and white as most other issues and it rests on the discretion and decision of the entrepreneurs and business owners to determine whether geo-location is worth pursuing extensively as a money-maker or as a feature which helps enhance the user’s experience and generates more money.

So which vote do you cast for? Is geo-location a business or feature?

Image credit: hisks / sxc.hu

In our last Tweetchat we discussed how to effectively blog for your small business and creating content that gets you found and increases traffic. But how do you know how to keep ‘em coming back?

That is the main question we will address this Thursday in our Tweetchat series discussion “How to Increase Traffic to Your Website” with our guest moderator Tinu Abayomi-Paul. Tinu is an expert in web marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) and has had great success in helping people generate leads and traffic from the web to their online properties. She is a widely published small business expert who blogs at freetraffictip.com, a site focused on building traffic systems to increase website profitability.

For those not familiar with Search engine optimization (SEO), it involves making enhancements to your website in order to improve its rankings in search engines like Google® or Yahoo!®. To help small business properly implement an SEO strategy for their business, the Tweetchat will address these key questions:

• Why is SEO critical to increasing web traffic?
• What are the Top 10 tips on how to increase web traffic?
• What are some of the common misconceptions and mistakes individuals make regarding SEO and web traffic?
• Where can I find useful online resources to manage and enhance web traffic?

Every small business needs to know how to optimize their web site for search engines since it is how consumers looking for specific products and services will find you. Implementing these best practices is also key in understanding where your customers are coming from and how they are finding you on the Internet. Come join Tinu and the Network Solutions Tweet Chat team this Thursday and get all of your questions answered.

Event Details:

When: Thursday July 29th 1-2:30pm EST

Where: http://tweetchat.com/room/netsol

Register: http://smallvolutiontweetchat.eventbrite.com/

To register for the Tweetchat, please register over at http://smallvolutiontweetchat.eventbrite.com/

Last Wednesday, there was a conference designed around one of the newest crazes in web technology and social media here in San Francisco: geo-location. What is geo-location? Think about it like your GPS device..it uses satellites and cell towers to figure out where you are. But in this case, the conference isn’t talking about your Tom Tom or your Magellan. Rather, they’re focusing on the tools that we probably most commonly use for entertainment purposes like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite and Google Latitude. But while we see a  lot more usage of these location-based services around town, do we really understand the dangers that it poses? Surely someone did a cost-benefit analysis when it comes to this new form of technology? How is checking into a location using Foursquare or Gowalla any different than having Google Maps use its system to tell you the area where you are? These are just some of the issues that were addressed at the Geo-Loco conference panel aptly titled “Please Stalk Me” and featured some great people on the dais.

Your panelists for this discussion included Stage Two founding partner Jeremy Toeman, Altimeter Group partner Deb Schultz, Location Labs’ Akash Agarwal, Quova’s LaurieAnne Lassek and Loopt’s CEO Sam Altman.

So what are some dangers with respect to these geo-location based services? It’s about the same as your privacy with Facebook. People are worried about the dangers that can come from using these services, but why would people still use them? The debate about using these location-based services, or LBS, should include talk about its entertainment value, business value and also its predatory nature. Yes, that’s right…predatory nature. It is so appropriate for this panel to be called “Please Stalk Me” because that is what LBS allows people to do. If your friends are interested in finding out where you are, then that might be comfortable to you, but there are a lot of LBS tools out there whose systems allow you to push your location to various other social networks and a lot of people seem to be wanting to share their information, but is that necessarily the right thing to do? A majority of those on the panel say that they’d appreciate more privacy in their location check-ins. While Loopt’s Altman says that a small percentage might only want to have the privacy more apparent, a majority of their users seems to want to continue with the way things are.

But location-based services can really have a harmful affect on people.  I recently wrote a post about Facebook privacy and while it’s not location specific, there are a lot of things that hold merit. In fact, a few months ago, a new website (albeit temporary) was created to highlight the dangers of exposing your check-ins. You may have heard about the site Please Rob Me and its attempt at using the LBS data to publicly tell people watching where exactly others were. This data wasn’t confidential or hidden. It was readily available to those who knew where to look. In fact, the creators of the site didn’t need to search very far. A lot of the data came from those who checked into locations and had their settings set to push notifications to Twitter and that became available to the world. In fact, that’s almost akin to going out to a billboard and plastering your location right there for the entire world to see without regards for your own welfare.

Yes, using location-based services are very entertaining, but who is responsible for ensuring the safety of the user? Is it the company or the user themselves? It is actually both parties and what I saw at this Please Stalk Me panel was some notable people almost “ganging up” on the sole LBS representative to tell them what they would like. Granted they were right, but the point should only be focused on helping to educate both the service provider AND the end user and showing them that there is inherent danger in showing where you are, especially when you don’t care to control who sees that information. Companies that create location-based services should look at making privacy the default setting and then allowing the end user to whittle down what he or she feels comfortable doing instead of making it public by default – and some services may already be doing that.

Some of the other discussions that took place during this session included protecting your venue. For Jeremy Toeman, he loves going to a nearby restaurant by his home where he is almost considered a regular. He currently does not use any location-based service nor does he intend to, but if he did, he probably would not because what LBS does for him is ruin a good secret. Granted he’s on Yelp and puts in reviews, but in doing so, as the place becomes more popular, the great secret of a good restaurant is exposed, ruining his experience. However, apart from this example, other topics included personal safety. I personally have spoken to some close friends who use check-in services and they tell me that they wouldn’t check-in until after they leave. Why? To avoid any stalkers and strangers approaching them and joining them. I recall a post written by Melissa Rowley for the Los Angeles blog Lalawag about the dangers of Foursquare during a recent dining experience in the city:

…an unknown number showed up on my iPhone. I normally only answer calls from numbers I recognize, but I picked up anyway. The caller asked me why I hadn’t been to Runyon Canyon lately. Back when I lived in West Hollywood, I hiked in Runyon Canyon Park two hours a day and I checked in regularly. When I asked who was calling he hung up. Turns out Foursquare makes your cell phone number visible to anyone you befriend on the Foursquare.

These types of dangers are real and can affect everyone, but especially women. Are you entirely sure who you are friends with? When you expose your data out into the world, while you’re willing to be public about your information, make sure that you are always taking the steps needed to protect your privacy AND yourself.

Image credit: sonfire / sxc.hu

Photo credit of Geo-Loco panel: Kenneth Yeung

Last Wednesday, there was a conference designed around one of the newest crazes in web technology and social media here in San Francisco: geo-location. What is geo-location? Think about it like your GPS device..it uses satellites and cell towers to figure out where you are. But in this case, the conference isn’t talking about your Tom Tom or your Magellan. Rather, they’re focusing on the tools that we probably most commonly use for entertainment purposes like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite and Google Latitude. But while we see a  lot more usage of these location-based services around town, do we really understand the dangers that it poses? Surely someone did a cost-benefit analysis when it comes to this new form of technology? How is checking into a location using Foursquare or Gowalla any different than having Google Maps use its system to tell you the area where you are? These are just some of the issues that were addressed at the Geo-Loco conference panel aptly titled “Please Stalk Me” and featured some great people on the dais.

Your panelists for this discussion included Stage Two founding partner Jeremy Toeman, Altimeter Group partner Deb Schultz, Location Labs’ Akash Agarwal, Quova’s LaurieAnne Lassek and Loopt’s CEO Sam Altman.

So what are some dangers with respect to these geo-location based services? It’s about the same as your privacy with Facebook. People are worried about the dangers that can come from using these services, but why would people still use them? The debate about using these location-based services, or LBS, should include talk about its entertainment value, business value and also its predatory nature. Yes, that’s right…predatory nature. It is so appropriate for this panel to be called “Please Stalk Me” because that is what LBS allows people to do. If your friends are interested in finding out where you are, then that might be comfortable to you, but there are a lot of LBS tools out there whose systems allow you to push your location to various other social networks and a lot of people seem to be wanting to share their information, but is that necessarily the right thing to do? A majority of those on the panel say that they’d appreciate more privacy in their location check-ins. While Loopt’s Altman says that a small percentage might only want to have the privacy more apparent, a majority of their users seems to want to continue with the way things are.

But location-based services can really have a harmful affect on people.  I recently wrote a post about Facebook privacy and while it’s not location specific, there are a lot of things that hold merit. In fact, a few months ago, a new website (albeit temporary) was created to highlight the dangers of exposing your check-ins. You may have heard about the site Please Rob Me and its attempt at using the LBS data to publicly tell people watching where exactly others were. This data wasn’t confidential or hidden. It was readily available to those who knew where to look. In fact, the creators of the site didn’t need to search very far. A lot of the data came from those who checked into locations and had their settings set to push notifications to Twitter and that became available to the world. In fact, that’s almost akin to going out to a billboard and plastering your location right there for the entire world to see without regards for your own welfare.

Yes, using location-based services are very entertaining, but who is responsible for ensuring the safety of the user? Is it the company or the user themselves? It is actually both parties and what I saw at this Please Stalk Me panel was some notable people almost “ganging up” on the sole LBS representative to tell them what they would like. Granted they were right, but the point should only be focused on helping to educate both the service provider AND the end user and showing them that there is inherent danger in showing where you are, especially when you don’t care to control who sees that information. Companies that create location-based services should look at making privacy the default setting and then allowing the end user to whittle down what he or she feels comfortable doing instead of making it public by default – and some services may already be doing that.

Some of the other discussions that took place during this session included protecting your venue. For Jeremy Toeman, he loves going to a nearby restaurant by his home where he is almost considered a regular. He currently does not use any location-based service nor does he intend to, but if he did, he probably would not because what LBS does for him is ruin a good secret. Granted he’s on Yelp and puts in reviews, but in doing so, as the place becomes more popular, the great secret of a good restaurant is exposed, ruining his experience. However, apart from this example, other topics included personal safety. I personally have spoken to some close friends who use check-in services and they tell me that they wouldn’t check-in until after they leave. Why? To avoid any stalkers and strangers approaching them and joining them. I recall a post written by Melissa Rowley for the Los Angeles blog Lalawag about the dangers of Foursquare during a recent dining experience in the city:

…an unknown number showed up on my iPhone. I normally only answer calls from numbers I recognize, but I picked up anyway. The caller asked me why I hadn’t been to Runyon Canyon lately. Back when I lived in West Hollywood, I hiked in Runyon Canyon Park two hours a day and I checked in regularly. When I asked who was calling he hung up. Turns out Foursquare makes your cell phone number visible to anyone you befriend on the Foursquare.

These types of dangers are real and can affect everyone, but especially women. Are you entirely sure who you are friends with? When you expose your data out into the world, while you’re willing to be public about your information, make sure that you are always taking the steps needed to protect your privacy AND yourself.

Image credit: sonfire / sxc.hu

Photo credit of Geo-Loco panel: Kenneth Yeung

According to her bio, “Gina Hughes is the founder of Techie Diva, one of the top technology blogs for women launched in 2005. Her blogs have been a source of inspiration and a guide for many women still struggling with everyday technology in the real world.” I can tell you that TechieDiva.com is one of the top tech blogs out there and Gina has become a go to resource for technology. She has been featured on media outlets including the Today Show, People Magazine, Family Circle, Blueprint, and Women’s World Magazine, just to name a few.

According to the Techie Diva site, here is the background on the site:

“Techie Diva is technology blog with an undeniable feminine twist. This doesn’t mean the opposite sex isn’t allowed, on the contrary, we love men who don’t mind partaking in our fun conversations which cover everything from emerging technology to the latest “it” gadget. Techie Diva got its start in January 2005, creating a tech haven for women of all ages who want to stay up to date with technology that matters to them. Sure we talk about fun gadgets, iPods, and cell phones until we’re blue in the face, but we also love writing about practical services or killer applications we spot online. Being the complex, intelligent women that we are, we’re not afraid to indulge in our guilty pleasures, and we certainly don’t mind getting our hands dirty. Having said that, Techie Diva merges the best of two worlds, technology and style.”

Take a look at how she used her passion and a .com to create her own business with Techie Diva.

You can connect with Gina at Linked In |  Facebook | Twitter | MySpace | Flickr

Submit Your Own .com Story and Win

Simply enter the contest and submit a short video or essay that tells how .com has changed your life. If your entry wins (by a combination of judging and popular votes), you could win one of ten iPads™, $2,500, $5,000, or $10,000.

Share the story of your .com Web address. Did you turn a hobby into a thriving business? Did you quit your office job to be your own boss? How has .com influenced your life? Whatever role .com has had in your life, we want to hear about it. Or read other .com success stories in the HowDoYou.com Gallery.

.com has already changed the world. And now it could change your world even more. The deadline to submit your entry is 11:59 p.m. MDT on August 31, 2010—don’t wait to tell your story!

I have something to confess. It’s something really horrible and I might actually need help overcoming this.

I am a Frontierville addict.

Yes, that’s my dark secret. I have become addicted to playing Frontierville. I spend a lot of my time on Facebook building up my little frontier clearing the land, raising animals and helping my “neighbors”. And I can’t help myself. Now, it really only started out because I was helping my brother out with his plot of land. He called me up one day and asked me if I would be his neighbor on Frontierville. Immediately I said no. Why? Because I know how big of a time suck those games can be…just look at how Farmville is. Do you really want to be spending your hours online building up a farm, let alone your plot of land, just to spend your hard-earned money (both literal and figuratively speaking) to buy more things to help level you up? I didn’t…but the more I thought about it, the more appealing it became for me. Here I was, practically staying at home non-stop and I had all the time in the world to spend on Frontierville. After all, I could always chalk this up to research, right? Yeah, that excuse doesn’t fly with me anymore either.

But there was something really remarkable about Frontierville, Farmville and all the other social games out there…it’s connecting people with one another and it’s surprisingly entertaining. For probably most people, spending time on these games could be considered brainless and a waste of time, but in fact, they’re bringing gaming back to a whole new level and generation and they’re really succeeding at it. So what have social gaming companies like Zynga, Playdom and Zong done that made them incredibly popular versus other traditional online games that we used to have not just a few years ago? Entertainment and socialization.

The social gaming industry is bigger than you might expect

Just how big would you expect an industry where you would be known to plan crops and farm your land be worth? Well probably much more than you would expect. The virtual goods industry, defined as “non-physical objects that are purchased for use in online communities or online games” is expected to sell over $1.6 billion in 2010. Yes, that’s right…billion. Not bad for a industry with users interested in farming, scaring off bears and doing other similar actions, huh?

Here are some other interesting statistics about the virtual goods industry you might not be aware of:

• Largest “social games” company is Zynga  with over 235 million active users per month – or 65 million users per day – Xbox Live only has 20 million total users and World of Warcraft is with 11.5 million total users.
• The top 3 social gaming companies in 2009 were Zynga ($200 million), Playfish ($75 million) and Playdom ($60 million).
• Zynga is looking to reap in $450 million in 2010 alone.
• 90% of Zynga’s revenue comes from selling virtual goods. 45% of that amount comes from FarmVille alone.

As you can see, there are a lot of things going on with virtual goods and more companies are emerging to help handle the business being done. More companies are developing games and to help process the payments, other companies are emerging to help manage the transactions. In doing a lot of business with their games, it’s no wonder that Zynga is PayPal’s number two merchant. This industry has become so popular so quickly, that developers are understanding how to keep people addicted to the game – let them continue playing no matter where they are…and that alone led to the availability of the game on the mobile phone and iPad devices. Now more people could spend more money using their gadgets to help them advance their characters in these games.

Gaming is gaming, right? Wrong.

What’s so appealing about Frontierville that has enthralled yours truly along with over 20 million users? What’s so special about managing your own farm in Farmville that has over 30 million active users each day logging in to update their activity? It’s the engagement and the social nature of it all. World of Warcraft and Everquest had it all before, but the limitation there was the viral nature of it all. You definitely wound up meeting more people in World of Warcraft, but there was no tie-in with the platform that it was on. It wasn’t a truly social game. It was an online virtual game, but not social. Games created by Zynga, Playdom, Playfish are social games and they operate based on a form of freemium payment – meaning that you can do all the same stuff as everyone else, but if you wish to offer up some real cash, you can expedite your character level and advance further faster. And it’s not like you have to buy a whole new game from Best Buy or wait in line at midnight for the store to open to be sure you can play the next level. Since social games are built in the Cloud, the developers are able to make tweaks, changes and add-ons relatively easy to help enhance the gaming experience.

How is this marketing?

Consumers are tired of being sold products. There’s just too much noise out there. Why are businesses like Zynga and other social gaming companies doing better? Because people are telling others to join their games. Just like my brother asked me to participate in Frontierville, I’m betting you’ve received notifications in Facebook asking you to be a part of someone’s Mafia Wars or create a farm in Farmville. Face it, it’s very viral…it’s because people enjoy having fun and these games, albeit not that difficult to play, just lets people have fun and collaborate with each other (in the non-professional sense). Fun equals success and letting people have more fun but give them the added option of opening up their wallet to make it even more fun is a win for the business and also for the consumer. Why? Because the consumer gets exactly what they want…more fun, but without having to spend $50 to get there…it’s just a little bit of money that will go a long way.

So what can businesses learn from social gaming? Simple. Stop pitching and find a way to show that your product is fun. Maybe there’s a way that you can tie in your business/product with an online game? I’m sure there are some businesses out there leveraging Farmville or Mafia Wars right now. While I might regret saying this, you should get your company involved in the current games on Facebook – if they’re so popular with millions of users, then you need to really understand what this case study is all about and how you can take advantage. Experience what consumers are experiencing and then find a way to do a tie-in or mimic an existing approach, but make it better. There are things that can be done, but learn how you to do it so we’re entertained.

Social networks is the new marketplace. We need to learn more about social currency.

Social currency is the resources utilized through social networks and are emerging through the use of social networks becoming the new marketplace for doing business and exchanging goods. I know that it may seem like it’s more like e-commerce, but in fact, a lot of businesses and merchants aren’t aware of how to really use this tool. While I’ve covered the virtual goods marketing end in this post, I will be attending the upcoming TechCrunch Social Currency Crunch Up next week at Stanford University and hope to have some interesting thoughts on social currency then. Stay tuned for a future post.

In searching for your influencers, there’s probably one hidden gem that businesses may be overlooking. Most businesses may not have this readily available at their disposal and it’s not a specific software that you’ll need to have, but various companies are responsible for creating these tools for those who are social media savvy. What tool am I talking about? It’s your social media monitoring tool. Whether you’re using Radian6, ScoutLabs, Attensity360, Sysomos or any of the countless others at your disposal, the point is that if you are already using social media monitoring tools to gauge your campaigns’ success, then there is a wealth of knowledge at your disposal that will surely help you find your influencers.

Don’t think about searching company specific

When dealing with social media monitoring tools, the thing that some people may think about is monitoring their own company. This is a really good thing to do, but did you know that you can also analyze things more abstract and broader than just looking at who mentions your company or brand name? In fact, next time you’re using the social media monitoring tool of your choice, explore more about what people are saying with respect to the type of product or perhaps your competitors. Wait, competitors? Yes…if your product is looking to enter into a market and you need to find the right people that are talking about that market, then look to see who is mentioning your closest competitor. If you want to get a wider range of conversation, then look at the genre as a whole. If you’re Sony and want to get your new digital SLR camera out into market, but you know that more people are talking about Canon or Nikon, you might want to do a search on which influencer is mentioning “digital photography” or “camera equipment” or “digital SLR cameras” as that’ll pull up results with more commentators.

Understanding your social media results

If you’ve used social media monitoring tools before, then you’ll know that what they give you typically involves sentiment analysis, relevant blog posts and keywords of interest – basically the equivalent of what you would get for Google Analytics if you were measuring website traffic and performance, but a bit more contextual. So how is one supposed to interpret it to figure out who their influencers are? Well let’s look at where it all starts out…with the dashboard. Obviously I can’t tell you how to find influencers on all your monitoring tools because, quite frankly, this post would be rather lengthy if I did it for every single tool out there. Instead, I’m going to focus on one and talk in generics – that tool is ScoutLabs.

When you log into your monitoring tool, the dashboard is typically the default screen that you would see. It gives you a summary overview on whatever searches you’re conducting. When dealing with social media, you’re typically going to have results from Twitter, blogs, comments and maybe other social networks like YouTube, Flickr, etc. based on how open the network is & if the tool you’re using has integrated with that data. Nevertheless, look at the details and like you would encounter in finding influencers in search engines or forums, see if there is someone who looks promising and/or has engaged or conversed about the company, product, industry or topic you’re searching for. That may be who you are looking for.

These social media monitoring tools will also provide you with a sentiment analysis on your search. If you are doing a query on a specific product, say your own, then you might want to look at both the positive and negative reactions to see who has the loudest voice and who could be easily changed. Never assume that the only influencers you should reach are those that are positive or talk about your product/company/brand. In fact, it’s definitely rewarding to have a negative reviewer change their mind and become positive about their experience and also of your product. So don’t ignore them. The negative people are also influencing others in their thinking. So make sure you look at who is being the most “negative” AND also “positive” and see whether they are worth reaching out to more & whether their reactions will change the perception people have about things.

Now you can obviously search through countless search results on Google or Bing and poll what Twitter users think about your product, but with monitoring tools like ScoutLabs or Radian6, you’re going to be able to look at what the general sentiment and conversation is across multiple fronts, including blogs, Twitter, forums, etc. It does it all for you. Now you just need to parse through that information to find out who’s worth reaching out to and who can do the influencing job.

Are these the influencers you’re looking for?

Perhaps the most powerful section in social media monitoring tools is the part where you get to find out where all the mentions are made relating to your search query. Anytime someone posts something relating to the query, it will appear in this area of your monitoring report. But rather than just throwing it against the wall and you figuring out what sticks, these tools now work for you and show you which result is more influential than the rest. Of course you can sort based on tool used (Twitter, forums, news, comments, etc.), but the bottom line is that these tools at your disposal will pinpoint and highlight which of the latest results is the most influential – positive or negative too.

What you should do is to look through each of these results and see if there are any that standout as possible influencers. Once you’ve found them, then you need to look at what they wrote and educate yourself on who they are and how they could be contacted. Don’t assume that you can simply go up to John Doe and say “I saw you wrote a post on my company. I’d like to talk.” Okay, that may work, but you need to give them more context. Think about social media monitoring tools as your sneak peek. It’s giving you a preview about how you’re going to angle your attack when you want to get someone’s attention. It’ll give you that extra edge over everyone else so you know where to look.

One thing that I’ve noticed from looking at ScoutLabs and this might also be true with other monitoring tools…there are also keywords that are also included in this area. Why is this so important? It’s because it might help you understand what context people are talking about your product. For example, say you’re running a hospitality company…while you would like to think people are using the word “hotel” to describe your business, what if they were actually using “inn” or “motel”? These frequently mentioned words that are trending may give you an insight into what people are thinking and also offer you a new avenue towards finding other influencers.

Social media monitoring is not a passive tool

Don’t discount social media monitoring as something more reactive than it should be. In fact, after you’ve gotten your social media monitoring software activated and ready to go, I would begin doing searches on your product and other common references to help give you an idea of what people are saying and to begin to reach out to your influencers. It’s not after your campaign has launched that you look back to see what people’s reactions are. Rather, use the features offered with these tools to help shape the sentiment and news that is being produced…be more proactive!