Building relationships is often discussed when it comes to Social Media. Lately, I have been struggling finding a balance with some relationships both private and professional. Sometimes, I’ll admit, its me, and yet sometimes, its the other party. The keyword here is balance and its a skill that I submit needs to be practiced.

Are you treating your friendships and relationships as a service contract that comes with an Early Termination Fee? Believe me, sometimes I wish I could! Alas that would be counterproductive don’t you think? The agreements we make with most service companies that have early termination clauses usually goes sour when the service becomes less of a service and more of a hassle. Are you providing value and service to your friends and clients? Performance may be another issue and ‘shiny new gadget’ syndrome may one as well.

So how does this translate into Social Media? There’s always new Social Media tools being launched. How we use these tools is really the question. As we interact with one another, do we give it our all or are we willy nilly in those relationships. Fair Weather Johnsons?

Its a simple phrase really, “How Can I Help?” . Do you use it often and do you really have the intention behind asking the question of others? I hear it sometimes and its used passively by those in customer service jobs. Rarely, it seems, do those that ask that question really mean it. On Veterans Day, I was reflecting upon service to others and that simple question. Have you ever asked that question? Sure you have. Did you mean it? When you asked the question and meant it, how did you feel when you were really able to help the other person. I bet it felt great. I am also certain that in some measure, the person who received your help felt great or relieved of their burden regardless of size or measurement.

We hear a similar mantra throughout Social Media; be of value to someone or create valuable content. As bloggers and social media enthusiasts, we all want to create that valuable post or the next application. I submit offering to help before others ask for it. I say so after I have listened to the audio book The Go Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann.

The Go Giver

The Go-Giver tells the story of an ambitious young man named Joe who yearns for success. Joe is a true go-getter, though sometimes he feels as if the harder and faster he works, the further away his goals seem to be. And so, one day, desperate to land a key sale at the end of a bad quarter, he seeks advice from the enigmatic Pindar, a legendary consultant referred to by his many devotees simply as the Chairman.

Over the next week, Pindar introduces Joe to a series of “go-givers”: a restaurateur, a CEO, a financial adviser, a real-estate broker, and the “Connector”, who brought them all together. Pindar’s friends share with Joe the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success and teach him how to open himself up to the power of giving.

Joe learns that changing his focus from getting to giving – putting others’ interests first and continually adding value to their lives – ultimately leads to unexpected returns.

Imparted with wit and grace, The Go-Giver is a heartwarming and inspiring tale that brings new relevance to the old proverb “Give and you shall receive”.

I highly recommend picking up a copy of this fine book.

Earlier this week, I was pondering (Pinky, are you Pondering what I’m Pondering?), on how to take over the world….er….what I’d like to write about in some upcoming blogs and was overwhelmed with potential topics that were presenting themselves. So much that it stunted my efforts to actually write anything at all. It seemed that my overload of information and topics threw me into a writers block. How is that possible? Somewhere in there I had all of the topics in the world to write about and yet, nothing! No action, information overload, no posts!

I came across this gem of a post by Roger C. Parker that takes you through what he describes as the Publishing Success Cycle and what he did to ensure continuity of producing a stream of content. The following is a borrowed excerpt from that article:

• Step 1: Promotion. Since I knew what each Tuesday’s topic was going to be, I would start to explore upcoming topics during the previous week so I could promote the call in my weekly newsletter and in my Friday Upcoming Events blog post. I begin by identifying the relevance of the topic to Published & Profitable friends and members. Focusing on the relevance of each week’s topic not only provides me with the marketing copy I need to promote each week’s call, it also helps me focus on the content I’m going to deliver during each week’s call.
• Step 2: Content maps. Next, I created a mind map for each call. Mind maps provide a visual to follow during each call. The mind map for each call followed the same basic organization, beginning by describing the relevance, or importance, of each topic. This was followed by my describing a 3-step process callers can use to address the topic. I follow the 3-steps with a list of recommendations and tips, followed by resources to learn more. I end each call with questions intended to stimulate caller comments and questions.
• Step 3: Handouts. Handouts play a major role in each call. The week before each call, as I am preparing the content maps, I create a note-taking sheet plus locate any existing resources, like examples, newsletters, or worksheets, that will help callers better understand each week’s topic. If I don’t already have what I need, I find it relatively easy to create a worksheet or simple report from scratch, since I have the motivation of the upcoming call. The handouts are uploaded the morning of the call, and I announce the URL where the PDF can be downloaded.
• Step 4: Presentation and recording. There are several important benefits to recording each call. Like many others, perhaps like you, I find it very easier to talk than to write. Creating a mind map and handouts for each topic provides the structure I need to comfortably address each topic. In addition, by recording each call, I can better listen and respond to callers without needing to take notes. This helps me better understand the caller’s knowledge of the topic and discover the questions they want answered.
• Step 5: Leveraging. By recording the call, I am simultaneously creating new content for Published & Profitable. I immediately post each call in the member area. In addition, I can have each call transcribed, so I can use it as the basis of articles, newsletters, and special reports.

These 5 steps are great advice that I would like to incorporate into my schedule to help ensure consistency with writing and creating valuable content. Thanks to Grant Griffith’s Blogforprofit.com for the inspiring article. if you get the opportunity, I highly recommend his blog.

Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia (note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)
6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the  population of Ireland, Norway, or Panama.  Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
13. 80% of Twitter usage is outside of Twitter…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27. Only 14% trust advertisements
28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34. In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media
35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

SocialMention.com is described on their website as ‘Like Google Alerts but for social media’. Why would you need such a tool you ask? This can be a very powerful tool to determine who and where your brand is being discussed. Monitoring where the mentions are coming from can be useful in many ways. Foremost, you can determine whether or not the discussions are positive or negative in nature. This can provide an opportunity from Brand Managers to do what they do best. The opportunity to join the discussion, engage with those that are talking about the brand/company, PR, quality improvement initiatives, and further Word of Mouth efforts are just a few that come to mind.

Take the example of @ComcastSteve and Comcast’s efforts for customer assistance. Comcast’s team utilized popular Microblogging platform Twitter.com to monitor their Comcast’s Brand mentions via Twitter. Anytime someone mentioned Comcast via a Tweet, someone from the Comcast Team were able to see that mention and respond accordingly. That, in and of itself is powerful in terms of communication and community outreach. It takes Customer Service to another level.

So how could you use this tool in your business or brand monitoring?

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the games, the model proves to be successful as the company reports Behind the buzz: Annual revenue at the two-year-old firm is likely to surpass $100 million this year, prompting speculation that the company — backed by the likes of LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and PayPal cofounder-turned-investor Peter Thiel — will soon go public. The software company also has managed to do something that other hot online brands such as Twitter and Facebook have not: Zynga has found a way to make social networking profitable. (CNN.com) You can read more from the post here.

In a nutshell, users pay for virtual goods and real estate. Talk about disposable income! I’m not sure that this appeals to me however, $100 Million seems proof to me that the model works. What else would these gamers pony up for one wonders! Perhaps it is a past time that people seek within in social media platforms.

What are your thoughts?