Here are some easy ways to start building social collaboration into your content strategy.

1. Train your social media teams to interact with your audiences, re-tweeting generously and responding to comments and wall posts. Interaction is the pathway to engagement.

2. Curation can lead to more than an interesting news channel. People are flattered when others tweet their blog posts and re-post links they’ve shared. And often, curation is a two-way street.

3. Find the online groups where enthusiasts live, and participate. These plugged-in groups are fantastic sources of intelligence, ideas and influence. Listen to the conversations. Which questions come up over and over? Which complaints never seem to go away? Within these conversations are opportunities for your brand. (Here are some ideas for developing traction within these types of groups: Virtual Focus Groups for Communicators.

4. Look to your own customer service teams and customer surveys. Mine customer questions and problems, and turn those into content in the form of blog posts about the solutions.

5. As you get to know members of your online audience, seek their opinions. Interview them for blog posts, invite them to preview content, solicit their opinions. In addition to generating good feedback, you’ll have solidified relationships. These folks are more likely to amplify your messages.

So what does the output of social collaboration look like? It can be as simple as incorporating relevant tweets or quotes from your audience into a piece of content. On a larger scale, collaboration can steer the direction a particular piece of content takes. And writ very large, social collaboration can lead to significant use of user generated content and crowd-sourced projects.

All of the resulting content has one important common factor: the voice of the audience comes through, loud and clear; signaling unequivocally that this brand is paying attention. And, as a bonus, using incorporating social collaboration into your strategy will virtually ensure that your audience will be interested in the content your organization publishes.

At the outset, collaboration with audiences can seem daunting. And there’s no doubt that on a larger scale, communities require resources. However, building social collaboration into your organization’s communications approach gets easier as your team gains experience – and as the audience’s respect is gained – triggering a loop of authentic interaction, and message amplification.

The survey revealed that 8% of customers want to buy a new television before the Super Bowl. Surprisingly, of those who bought a new TV last year for the game, over half of them plan on buying an even newer television for this year.

It seems a bigger and better picture quality trumps the actual live game; why chance sitting in the nose bleed section when you can almost be on the field with a high-def TV set? 25% of those surveyed said the size of their TV depended on how pleasurable their viewing experiences would be. According to consumers, high resolution is the most important factor when purchasing a new TV; sound quality even came in second to picture quality. According to Jeff Haynes:

“Bigger is better. The reason people are spending more is they are upgrading the size of their television. Consumers have moved from wanting televisions around 42 inches to now buying 46 inches to 55 inches, the TV has become the center piece of the American family room and the difference in just a few more inches is noticeable.”

As online shopping gains momentum, in-store television buying is on the decline. The survey say 67% of people planning to buy a tv before the big game, plan on purchasing theirs online rather than the old fashioned store.

While Netflix has been preparing for customer turnover, because it’s apparent people want another option in relation to movie rentals, which is something that undoubtedly sounds great to Redbox. Well, that and their dissatisfaction with the Netflix price hikes. It’s becoming apparent that, until Netflix substantially improves its streaming movie catalog–a difficult proposition as long as content providers keep leaving–the choice between DVD rentals and streaming movies isn’t an easy one. Granted, Netflix’s release schedule for DVDs has also been affected by other content providers, so by the time you get a popular new release in your mailbox, it’s not so new anymore.

With all of that in mind, when Yahoo Finance reports that Netflix expects to lose 600,000 customers in the United States during the month of September, it’s hard to be surprised by this news. It’s also hard to be surprised by the fact that Netflix’s stock to a hit this month as well.

The question is, can Netflix sustain its current business model? While the immediate reaction may be “Netflix is doomed,” a snippet from Yahoo’s article indicates reports of Netflix’s early demise may have been premature:

Even with fewer subscribers, Netflix expects to bring in $10 million to $25 million more from its customers than during the July-September period than it did April-June. Emphasis added.

It stands to reason that some of this revenue will come from customers who forget to change their subscription package, or from the ones who want both streaming and physical DVD delivery, it doesn’t explain the July-to-August periods. Did all that negative press actually help their bottom line?

However, when you look at the potential exodus numbers now that the price changes have taken hold, the two are not congruent. While subscriptions may have increased during the summer, adding to the Netflix bottom line, the outlook does not remain as positive, especially with the news about Netflix’s expected customer loss. So what does this mean for the home movie rental business? Yahoo has more:

Many of the people no longer renting DVDs from Netflix will get their discs elsewhere. That could be a boon for Redbox, which rents DVDs for $1 per night through 33,330 kiosks in supermarkets and other retailers, and Blockbuster, which still has 1,500 U.S. stores after emerging from bankruptcy protection under the ownership of Dish Network Corp. Investors are betting Redbox will be the main beneficiary; the shares of Redbox owner Coinstar surged $3.33, or more than 7 percent, to close at $48.55 on Thursday.

If Amazon can beef up its content on Amazon Instant Video service, it, too could knock Netflix farther down the home movie business totem pole.

What about you? Will stick by Netflix or are you moving on to Redbox and other services that offer streaming movie options?

Is there a point where adapting to Google’s changes becomes impossible? Share your thoughts.

To a very drastic extent, Google drives how the search engine marketing industry operates. With Google holding such a dominant share of the search market, it’s not hard to figure out why. While some may tell you it’s not the most productive use of your marketing time, businesses who hope to find success in driving people to their website (or even brick and mortar store) often hang on every word Google says and every change Google makes to its search engine and/or search results.

Liz Gannes with the tech blog GigaOm recently spoke with Google Engineering Director David Glazer about Google’s approach to social for 2010. And we come back to that changing search landscape. Social plays a huge role in it, and Glazer acknowledged just that. Gannes reports:

In 2010, Google plans to expose and elicit more of the social network built into the tools that many of us already use — Gmail, Google Talk, etc. If you use Google products, the company already knows who your most important contacts are, what your core interests are, and where your default locations are. Glazer said to expect many product and feature launches that start to connect that information in useful ways.

What does "social" mean to Google? "Who I am, who do I know, what do I do," said Glazer. (emphasis added)

Back in October, Google released its experimental Social Search feature, which Google said would help users "find more relevant public content from their broader social circle."

Relevance of social search has been questioned though. WebProNews recently discussed search trends for 2010 and beyond with comScore‘s "Search Evangelist" Eli Goodman. Believe it or not, social search is counted among these trends, and he mentions such a lack of relevance in social search results.

The real question is: is SEO going to become less relevant? Before you get all worked up, I will acknowledge that SEO is based on adaptation and changing along with the search engines. In fact, that was essentially the topic of a recent WebProNews article. Hear me out.

Right now, search engine optimization as we know it is still very relevant for businesses, but as Google learns more about who people are, they’re going to direct them to what they think is right. Social search and personalized search are very closely related.

Think about Google’s universal search, which aims to deliver results Google thinks you might want. These results draw from a wide variety of different places – Google News, Google’s real-time index, YouTube, etc. Each set of universal results takes more attention away from the regular old organic results. How long until social search (or something like it) becomes a part of this.

And let’s not forget about mobile. Smartphones are taking the world by storm, and Google is doing everything in its power to take over this market (though it still has work to do). Google knows your location if you let it. Then you have Google Latitude. Google knows your friends’ locations if they let it. Then, what happens when Chrome OS (Google’s Operating System) comes out. It may not catch on as much as Google would like, but then again it may. It starts on netbooks, but how long until that grows into something bigger?

Google just keeps on releasing more products. More products means more opportunities for the company to encourage use of other Google products. They also keep acquiring more companies by the way, and that includes the recent acquisition of a mobile advertising agency and an attempted acquisition of Yelp (the failure of which, was quickly compensated for to some extent by Google’s release of the "Near me Now" feature).

As Gannes notes, Google has this month brought on strategists Joseph Smarr and Chris Messina, who she says are "widely known for their advocacy of the open social web." This likely will lead to more social and personalized experiences related to search.

Chris Brogan, one of the posterboys for social media, read the article too, and makes some pretty good points for businesses. Rather, he asks questions. Questions like:

- Does your company know how you are?
- Do they know who you know?
- Do they know what you do?

Questions like these are already important for a business looking to establish its identity (not to mention tell its story), but they could become increasingly important in an era of new SEO strategies.

"People expect a certain level of customer service as table stakes to the game," says Brogan. "In the new, much more wired world, I believe we’re asking for more. I want my airlines to know just how often I fly, which seat I tend to choose, how often I upgrade, and whether I normally check my bag. Think about how helpful they could be if they did something with that information."

Naturally, privacy plays a big role in the scheme of things, and as Brogan notes, that means opt-in. However, I think people generally trust Google (the search engine), at least to the extent that they will continue using it for the foreseeable future. I am well aware that many people do NOT trust Google, but within the broad spectrum of the general public, people trust it. Google’s search market share is evidence of that.

So, moving into the future, as Google makes efforts to tailor the user experience to a more social and more personalized one, where does that leave traditional SEO? Can it survive? It’s always been about adaptation and will continue to be, but is there a breaking point where SEO will be trumped by who users know and where they are? Who they are? Can you optimize for every individual customer? That’s where things could get tricky.

If you have thoughts on the matter, we would love to hear them in the comments.

Related Articles:

> Google Launches Social Search Experiment

> Optimizing for Mixed Media Search Results

> Succeeding In SEO Requires Change

Sure, you have to take the economy into consideration, but there are other factors that can keep people from making purchases online. A new poll from Harris Interactive found that a lack of human assistance is one of those factors, and a big one at that.

Here are some interesting findings from that poll:

- 4 in 5 online adults who have purchased items online in the last six months (77%) say they would be interested in getting help from a real person before making certain online purchases.

- However, over 4 in 5 (82%) say there have been times when they have not been able to get help from a real person.

- Over half (52%) of those who haven’t been able to get the help they needed from a real person say it’s affected their decision to not purchase the product.

Just look at the following graphs:

 

"No level of automation can replace the human touch. The results indicate that shoppers still want real people to help them purchase products, even in a digital setting," said Prashant Nedungadi, CEO and founder of IMshopping, who commissioned the survey. "Many retailers have started taking steps in this direction and we believe it will be the single biggest push for the retail industry over the next several years."

The following graph shows some of the types of items people really want human assistance with before making purchasing decisions.

Out of the people who have purchased items online in the past six months, the most commonly purchased items include clothing, books, music, health and beauty products, and travel-related items.

While it is a good idea to make the online purchase as easy on your customers as possible, from simply the design and usability standpoint, you may consider whether or not you are offering enough human assistance, and how easy that is for the customer to obtain.

(Coverage of the ACCM conference continues at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

The most valuable asset you have is your customer list, not your brand. Once you have customers the goal is to retain, reactive and move up the ladder.

Trollinger said analysis is important when it comes to mail frequency by segment and overall drop level response. Most catalogers do not mail their customers enough.

To build your customer base contact customers more often and have a first time buyer strategy, along with reactivation customers who have been inactive.  Put all your numbers into a master plan.

Use a contact chart so you have a visual display of how and when customers will be contacted. Combine all customer points into one reference document so you have an integrated view of the customer communication experience.

When it comes to executing your plan Trollinger said, "The big thing is if you plan it, do it." He also said to do a post campaign analysis.

Do all 3 happen at once for some people? Sure, but probably not for the majority of customers.

My big issue with hyping social media is that most things that are popular on social media sites do not actually build credibility, and that you are going to have marginal success building your brand if you start by focusing on these broad third party communities rather than YOUR TOPICAL COMMUNITY.

When I first started getting well known there was no Digg. There was a Slashdot, but exposure on Slashdot did not make or break me. What really sent my personal brand on a sharp upward trajectory was when Danny Sullivan mentioned me. Because he felt I was comment-worthy many other people suddenly thought I knew what I was talking about and that I was trustworthy.

That perception of trust, audience, and personal-brand that Danny had spent years building was in some part transferred to me. Am I as well known as he is? Of course not, but while sites like Digg have audience they tend to lack that perception of trust and personal-brand that transfers BUYING CUSTOMERS to your site.

If a person who has trust and a broad base of readership recommends you that creates immediate sales. I see that in my daily sales data and my affiliate statistics. If you get featured on social media sites it does not lead to many sales. Perhaps that exposure leads to awareness, which can further be enhanced by writing about that community, buying banner ads from sites like Lead Back, or by writing other create subscription-worthy content, but generally in content editorial link from a trusted expert creates more sales than exposure on a nearly automated hollow social news site.

If your site is new to the market and you want some exposure you have two options

• eat Taco bell for a month, take the world’s biggest crap, then write a leading 10 step how-to guide on how-to polish it, or
• create things that people INSIDE YOUR COMMUNITY will find useful

One of those strategies will get you in the Guinness book of world records. The other will make sales.

Does your content build trust?

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Does that make them stupid? Of course not. Their perspective is just different. In their eyes, the retailer is the one that is stupid.

This hit home to me this week in a confrontation I had with Bank of America. I had one of those 0% teaser rates and set up the account online to deduct the minimum each month. The day the teaser rate expired, I paid off the account in full and closed the account.

The next month, they took money out of my checking account to pay the account even though it had no balance and was closed. I called them and asked them why. They told me I had to go in online and turn off the autopayment even though the account was closed. I told them that was a stupid policy, but logged in and cancelled (I thought) the auto-payment.

Next month, they took money from my checking account again. I called and asked why. They told me that I did not really cancel the auto-payment but just cancelled one month of the auto-payment. I asked them to just stop the payments from their end and they said that they could not–only I had the ability to do that. I told them how stupid that was, but spent a few minutes searching my online account for a way to turn off auto-payments for good.

As hard as I tried, I could not find a place to stop auto-payments for good. I told them that, and they told me it was my fault (even though they were unable to tell me how to do it over the phone). Finally, they said they would take care of it on their end.

That brings us to this week. I noticed again that they hit my checking account two more times during the past two months. I called and asked why (I may have again mentioned how stupid I thought Bank of America is). Again, they told me that they were unable to stop auto-payments on their end–only I could do that online. I logged in again, and try as hard as I could, I found no way to stop auto-payments. After the conversation took a rude turn, she finally went and found someone to turn off auto-payments for the account.

My guess is that I will see another debit on my checking account next month. I may have to change bank accounts before this all over. Let me say to Bank of America–you are very stupid. Your online account functionality is stupid, and your customer service is ridiculous.

But, I can’t be too upset. Thanks Bank of America for lending me so much money with no interest for a year. And if you send me another offer for large amounts of money at no interest, I will be glad to take you up on it again.

That brings me back to internet retail. Don’t fall to the Bank of America level of stupidity. Here are some things that online retailers simply have to do.

1) Find a way to design from a customer perspective. That means you cannot rely on designers to design something that looks good. You have to run usability tests or surveys or something else to collect data that helps you design for your customers instead of yourself.

2) Make sure your customer service understands the functionality of the site. Give classes, let them place test orders, etc. Also, drill into their heads that it is not the customers’ problem if they find your site hard to use–it is your problem. If an average customer struggles with your site, they are not the ones that are stupid!

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