We introduce our fifth guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary this year, Kathleen Kaufman, published author and educator.

Kathleen Kaufman is the author of environmental fiction and an inner city educator. She is well known in the social media community as a Facebook influencer and entertaining blogger. She can be found on her publisher’s website, The Way Things Are Publications, on Facebook and on her website.

Facebook marketing is a dirty word. No one wants to feel like they’re friends with a person who is trying to sell them a product, be it a book or a copyedit.  The most successful Facebookers, the ones who have converted their page into actualized business, are not marketing, rather they are participating.   It’s not as easy as it sounds; for one, you have to mean it.  The simple act of being genuine on Facebook is easier said than done.

I am certainly not an expert on how to juggle professionalism and sincerity in a virtual world, but I have learned a few lessons along the way as to what not to do.

1.  Mass Emails: I currently have approximately seventy-three messages waiting for me on my page.  I have no intention of reading them, for the most part, because they are all invites to ‘The Best Opening Night Of The Best Play Ever!’ or ‘Open Mic Night At The Improv!”   Thus, most of them are for events that are in Boston, Chicago, or New York.  It becomes painfully obvious that the sender has no idea that I live in Los Angeles, and even more painfully obvious that I am just a number, a member of their growing horde, an inadvertent member of a fan club.

Who would have thought? You are in a mall, walking by a Macy’s store and oops! You get an alert on your smart phone that Macy’s has a special discount for you if you walk in, right now.  Or, you are driving approximately 10 blocks from Taco Bell, and there goes off that alert again – this time with an offer from Taco Bell that’s well worth a stop, rather than the one you had planned on – that coffee shop across the street. It gets better.  If you walk into a store often enough, you will be able to click as you enter on the smart phone location and immediately get on a customer loyalty program, enabling you to add points for future purchases, much like frequent flyer programs with miles.

Of course, you have to be a location app user.

If this sounds futuristic, it’s not. It’s here. Apparently all this was made possible by Foursquare, the location-based social network that introduced a free analytics tool and dashboard last month, giving business owners access to a range of information and statistics about visitors to their establishments.

Innovative marketers have managed to figure out how to maximize this into win-win situations. Just consider — Pepsico and the likes, sell more products, stores get more traffic and the consumer gets special offers geared to his/her likes and tastes.  And there’s another convenience soon to come.  As companies start to turn Foursquare (or other custom location applications) into a virtual loyalty-card program that offers customers discounts or other rewards for shopping, consumers get to toss all those customer loyalty cards that stuff up wallets and use smart phones as a simple replacement for it all.

Savvy businesses like Starbucks, Tasti-D-Lite, Macy’s and Pepsi, are using information reaped from smart phones that can signal someone’s location, to get live information about when and where people are shopping, track store traffic and note when their most loyal customers visit and market to them accordingly.

Of course, you have to want to be tracked and it’s good to remember that being a member of the likes of Foursquare is a proactive choice. But while it was fun and games just to check out who is sitting in the cafe across the street to find friends to meet up with spontaneously, so much information about you, presents a whole new scenario.

It is not only friends who are looking for you now, rather marketers, who are following your moves…

This may cause a momentary shudder (as in Big Brother Is Watching YOU, right out of George Orwell’s book, 1984), but my guess is that in 2010, it is the accepted reality — more so, if you get such advantages as loyalty points, discounts and free sodas.

It may just be that if Big Brother is, in fact watching, it no longer matters…

The curious power of modern computer technology has allowed us to view the world around us through our webcams and iPhones, and in so doing, we have been able to super-impose images, video and sound over our view of reality. The result: augmented reality.

This new trend of entertainment technology has led to some remarkable applications.  For example: face-recognition technology uses your webcam to put a Transformer’s head on you; it allows you to try on virtual sunglasses as well as translate street signs by looking at them through a mobile device, or bring animated characters to life on your desktop with a webcam.

While this entertainment technology is very entertaining indeed, what are the implications for marketers? There is currently much discussion on the potential marketing value of augmented reality technology, what with new mobile applications and online programs popping up everyday, but there is little clear regard for measurable and useful marketing tactics.

Certainly, the use of augmented reality to develop viral social media campaigns is viable. According to Businessweek, it has been done by Kia Motors, Nestle, Frito Lay, and Wise Foods however with mixed results.   Still, it is expected that $170 million will be dumped into mobile augmented reality advertising within the next 5 years.

Viral videos, tactically, are only one slice of the augmented reality pie. Take for instance what iPhone apps Layar and SekaiCamera are doing. Both apps have taken augmented reality and geo-positioned this together into a whole new virtual universe, where consumers can hold up their iPhone, see information about the business in front of them, as well as its phone number and Wikipedia article. SekaiCamera takes it further, and allows users to post their own comments (virtually) on that business or location. Already a huge success in Asia, the SekaiCamera phenomena could potentially transform the world into a series of post-it notes visible to anyone who holds up their iPhone or Android. The ability to slap a comment on a restaurant’s physical location makes Yelp look like child’s play.

The marketing potential for an app like SekaiCamera trumps imagination. Coupling geo-positioning and augmented reality is a great way to get the word out about one’s brand. In one sense, the whole wide world can be an advertising platform wherein companies can post messages in physical locations right where their audience is. Creative campaigns could even include treasure hunts, whereby customers who uncover particular messages in particular locations, get free prizes or discounts. Or companies could award discounts to consumers who post in the sky about their product. Brick and mortar locations could encourage customers to post virtual tags all over the wall, telling other customers of their positive experiences there.

The overarching point is that the online world has now come full circle and the once global universe of social media marketing is now being transformed into a geo-located virtual reality  – right back in the middle of your target audience’s physical location.

While it will take time for SekaiCamera and other apps like it to catch on in the U.S., location “check in” apps like FourSquare are already transforming the market. The trend is inevitable: mobile technology and augmented reality will bring customers back into the real world and away from their global social media safety net. Online or off, it is still about location, location, location.

We introduce our third guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary, Jay Baer,  who writes in the below blog, on forward thinking social media programs and their composition.

Jay Baer is one of the world’s most popular social media strategy consultants and bloggers. His Convince & Convert social media blog is consistently ranked among the top business blogs, and he speaks to tens of thousands of marketers annually at conferences and conventions. Founder of five companies, he’s a digital marketing pioneer that started online in 1994. He’s worked with more than 700 brands since then, including 25 of the Fortune 1000 (Nike, Pepsi, Sony, Cadbury, Conoco/Phillips, Procter & Gamble). He’s a tequila-loving forest dweller with a passion for tequila, and spreads his “strategy first, then tactics” message like a digital dandelion.

I’m sitting in a restaurant in Cincinnati last night, surrounded by televisions with the sound turned down. The bartender approaches, and asks if I’d like to hear the TV. I say “sure” expecting him to saunter over to a monitor, and turn up the volume. Instead, he reaches under the bar, and pulls out a Soundog unit.

The Soundog is an ingenious device – a small, personal speaker with switching capabilities, enabling me to listen to whichever game I prefer without bothering nearby patrons.

Happily using this handy new technology, I was struck by its utter usefulness and the fact that it neatly addressed a common (although perhaps not world-changing) problem.

Why can’t your social media program do that?

The difference between “selling” and “helping” is only two letters, but the gap is in reality, much larger.

The best – and most effective – social media programs aren’t based on promotions and message distribution. Instead, they revolve around removing friction and uncertainty for potential or current customers.

Nationwide Insurance has a terrific iPhone app that allows you to document a vehicle crash in real-time, including photos, collection of the other drivers’ insurance information, and other key details. They aren’t trying to sell you more insurance – at least not at that point – they are being helpful.

Geek Squad makes its living providing technology configuration and repair services, via BestBuy stores everywhere. But yet Geek Squad has a YouTube channel that includes hundreds of videos showing people how to do it themselves. They aren’t trying to sell you services – at least not at that point – they are being helpful.

Geek Squad Founder Robert Stephens was asked about the contradiction of a services company providing helpful videos at a conference where I spoke. He said that the reality is, their best customers are those that can do some of it themselves. If they can assist them initially, they’ll appreciate it and turn to the when they need more help.

That’s understanding the difference between selling and helping. That’s understanding that social media success is a long putt, not a tap-in. That’s measuring results on an annual basis, not a weekly basis.

That’s what you should be doing.

Start today by conducting a Helpfulness Audit for your company. Talk to your customer service department, or survey your customers and document the top 10 problems that customers have with your product or service. Then, strategize ways you could make those problems disappear by providing better content (as with Geek Squad), faster response (as with Nationwide), or better access to help (as many companies are doing by launching online customer support communities using Get Satisfaction or other systems).

The first time that Pepsi elects to forgo its past 26 years of advertising on the Super Bowl and selects to spend $20 million for a massive multi-channel interactive social media campaign, it collides with the Annual Trust Barometer from Edelman PR, which reports that peer to peer trust has surprisingly waned in favor of more credible sources.  Not that, at first glance, one has anything to do with the other, except that just when viral marketing seems like a smart strategy, smarter than even Super Bowl advertising, the Trust Barometer’s survey results show that trust in friends and peers as credible sources has dropped by almost half, from 45% to 25%, in the last two years.

And the parameters of the Pepsi Refresh campaign is all about the populous votes of “friends and peers” who will decide as to which ideas or projects Pepsi should fund in grant money in six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, the neighborhoods and education. It will be the people’s choice as to which of the 1000 ideas submitted are to receive grants that range from $5,000 to $250,000, figures not to be taken lightly.  And the criteria for voting is exactly — what?

How does that work?  “Oh this is cool, I think I will vote for this.” Click. Or, “My boyfriend is really into bands, so I think I will vote for that.” Click.  How about, “I’ll feel good if I vote for the local health clinic.” Click.  Some ideas submitted are more political as in “Help free healthcare clinic expand services to uninsured in rural Tennessee (TN).”  Click.  (I live in rural TN.)  Or I live in Kansas so I vote for, “Build a fitness center for all students in Hays, Kansas community.”

Click. Click. Click.  “And the check goes to…” Every month, Pepsi will award up to 32 grants to projects voted on by the most clicks.

By all accounts the “ Pepsi Refresh” initiative is everything that an ideal interactive campaign can be – creative, innovative, highly engaging and very popular, while building on the brand in a fun and social way.  But I venture to say that the challenge that Pepsi faces, and that other companies are bound to also face, as they delve deeper into social media’s ever-expanding communication opportunities is that at some point, critical thinking will matter.

Look, the “Pepsi Refresh” program should be nothing like an American Idol segment where voters root for the next star just because they “like.”  Nor should it be like clicking on “like” on a photo or comment on Facebook.  In creating a program that allows a populous vote to decide on grants, votes that can make a difference as to whether a school’s music program gets funded or whether an elder care facility expands its programs, Pepsi’s challenge is to go against the very fiber of social media’s whims, set a criteria upon which they can deliberate, and turn the populous vote into a credible one.

Failing that, it is but a game — one that is being played out with a lot of money, with no sense of fairness and with little trust in the voters’ selection.

Any serious and worthy projects submitted should not mistake it for anything else.

Advertisers are on the prowl again, this time around with checks in hand, to recruit Twitterers via the newly launched Sponsored Tweets, a new Twitter advertising platform that connects advertisers with Twitterers.  Now, those who tweet as a lifestyle (really most, per the headline in ClickZ, July 30, 2009, “Twitter Surpasses Facebook as Top Link in E-mail”) have the opportunity to get paid by advertisers for their tweets when tweeting about products and companies.

Well, there goes the “neighborhood,” so to speak, or the end of Twitter as we know it…

Look, getting paid for blogging about a company’s product, etc. is not new. It’s known as a “sponsored conversation,” which is a social media marketing technique in which brands provide financial or material compensation to bloggers in exchange for posting social media content about a product, service or website.  In fact I devoted a blog to the topic last June 11, titled “The FTC Steps in, Lightly” questioning the credibility of paid bloggers and noting FTC’s watchful eye hovering over it all.

And now enters the next iteration of “paid-for-opinions” online, in the pay-per-tweet platform. It somehow seems more invasive with Twitter, which originally was set up as a quick communication path for keeping up, almost hourly, with the minutest details of everyday life with friends near and far.  It even became a conduit for transmitting first hand news in real time (as in the plane that landed in the Hudson River trumping all news outlets).

This all begs the question, “how much is your Twitter soul worth?” Getting paid for tweets really sounds like a Twitter “sellout” to me…

By all accounts, I have plenty of company in that thought.  Per Mashable’s Adam Ostrow, “Personally, I think any review – on a blog or on Twitter – is immediately de-valued if the author is being paid to write it, because the objectivity is lost.” And according to an article that appeared on Mashable on the launch of Sponsored Tweets, “when you throw Twitter in the mix, there’s always the potential that your followers won’t understand that your sponsored tweet has been commissioned, even with the obligatory “hashtag” (or disclosure in the ad copy, which may, in the hurry to scan 140 characters, easily be overlooked).

Still, looking at the brighter side of things, it’s not really a bad thing for those unemployed Twitterers, and could potentially be seen as a “boost” to the hordes of still unemployed whose unemployment benefits may soon be at the brink of running out.  It could mean pocket change, a lively entrepreneurial business or a potential goldmine for Twitterers who can set their pay rate and find opportunities to tweet on behalf of advertisers, getting paid per tweet and/or click.

Interestingly enough, the cost per tweet (CPT) does not run cheap for the advertiser.  It can run between $2 and $30,000 per tweet for a 140-character message. The message goes from one Twitter account to as many people as the person has following.

Apparently there are already 200 paid Twitterers, among them celebrities who are ready and willing to be compensated for the appropriate Twitter advertising campaign.  I suspect that Sponsored Tweets will have a runaway crowd of Twitterers waiting in the wings for advertisers to beckon.

If you are a retailer in the time of an extended recession, what do you do when you open your doors and ever so few walk in?  Despair for one, panic, hand out pink slips or – innovate.

And that’s just what Best Buy did.  According to a report by Bloomberg news last week, headlined, “Best Buy Uses Twitter to Create Sales, Service Team” the company is first in reaching out to the Twitter community to search out people who really care about their consumer electronics – you know, those who chat about what’s new, what works, what brand has more clarity, where to find it, and so on.

Enter Best Buy’s Twelpforce, on July 19.  A clever play on combined words as in Tw for Twitter, elp, for the second half of help, and force as in sales, Best Buy’s 500 person sales team will engage with consumers by Twittering away, entering into 140-character conversations with those who are consumed with consumer electronics and want to devour as many facts, figures, technical tidbits, cost comparisons and whatever else anybody wants to know about consumer electronics.  And guess who will be their “sidekick”…

So, engage first, sales next.  How clever is that?  It has usually been the other way around as in “buy now, and call us if you need help.”

Considering that all this is innovative, we were curious and took a quick straw poll over the 4th of July weekend, as to whether Best Buy’s “Twelpforce” Use Of Twitter To Create Sales Is Hot Or Not.  We found some surprises.  When asked by age groups, 18-24, 25-34. 35-54, and over 55, it was the youngest group that was 100% not sure whether it was a good use of Twitter.  In contrast, the two middle age groups thought it was good use by an average of 60%.  When asked by gender, women outweighed men as to a positive use of Twitter, by 67% to 56%.  When asked by different job categories, more surprises came up. It turned out that academics, marketing and PR people were 100% not sure whether it was a good use of Twitter, while product and sales people were 100% sure.

It’s clear that the jury is still out.  But you have to hand it to them. It’s that old line, that if buyers don’t come to you, go to them.  Traditionally it’s been about going to them through advertising, promotions and coupons.  But this time around it’s the contemporary way, actually going to where their potential customers hang out, listening to what their “wants” are, and communicating directly one-on-one.

Moreover, it’s a frugal way, for it leverages the downtime of employees in the stores. By tapping the Twitter platform, Best Buy has basically made a “pay forward” move, which should pay off in brand loyalty down the road and translate into sales.   It is also the first, to take the next evolutionary step for how sales and service can meld with Twitter.

Marketers take note…

The brilliant article entitled, “The Ten Ways Twitter Will Permanently Change American Business” on 24/7 Wall Street this week, in which it examined Twitter’s model and its future impact on business, is essentially a “state of the art” of Twitter today. In reading the article I was struck with awe, but also with a measure of watchfulness at the fast pace with which Twitter has enmeshed itself into every aspect of life in America.

The “awe” comes from the fact that Twitter has rapidly become a place where companies build brands, do research, send information to customers, conduct e-commerce and create communities for their users. Moreover, Twitter had supplanted traditional media as a source of information, news and entertainment.  According to author, Douglas A. McIntyre, “some industries, like local retail, could be transformed by Twitter… for it has the potential to drive substantial amounts of business to retailers.”

While Twitter’s potential commercial value as a way to communicate with customers cannot be overstated, there are some brands that will do better than others in their effort to engage the community.  Tweeters are opinionated and, as such, will choose which firms they are willing to get messages from directly (such as promotions, sales, new products, etc.) and brands that key into contemporary culture or style, will surely have a larger ‘following” than brands that don’t.

However, it’s not all roses. A certain unease comes from the fact that social media can be used against a company by any disgruntled Tweeter with his/her own agenda, as seen this week by the Starbuck’s multi-million dollar campaign in which the company had put up billboards in six major cities and then encouraged Tweeters to hunt for the posters — and be the first to post a photo of one using Twitter.  But, according to Alternet.org, filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who had a critical video in the “can” ready to go about the way Starbucks treats employees, entered the Twitter contest, basically hijacking the contest as a way to get out news about his short video.

Among other worrisome aspects of Twitter, is its potential impact on financial markets.  According to the article, Twitter can easily become a platform for discussing stocks, offer opinions and exchange information, whether correct or not.  Per the article, “The Twitter audience makes it possible for groups interested in one stock to post opinions on that company, trades, research, rumors, and data directly from the company in real-time.” At some point federal government agencies such as the SEC will surely need to get involved, for per McIntyre, Twitter has the potential to be one of the most disruptive technologies to become part of the financial markets in decades.

Like many social network sites, Twitter is “self governed” by its members.  Companies must take that into account as they join the service — and also keep an extra measure of watchfulness…