I’m going to go out on a limb here. I actually like Google+. There, I said it. It’s out there and I can’t ever take it back. For me the platform provides a rich media outlet where images are not static, they are dynamic. Videos are linked very easily to YouTube. The ability for community managers to administer multiple pages from the one account. Hangouts working better than Skype these days. It simply ticks all the boxes for me. But as I said, this is a personal choice.

The question is – should businesses be using Google+?

The answer – yes if you have the time (or an internal / external community manager)

Benefits of Google+ for business

Growing Platform – Whilst Google+ does not have the popularity of Facebook, it does have a fast growing member base. As at April 2012 Google+ had 170 million active users and expected to attract about 400 million users by the end of this year. (Source)

Development – Google+ is a young social network, and still has opportunity to roll out functionality / services that will benefit business. Being tied into the world’s most powerful search engine, these opportunities may place early adopters with an advantage.

Indexing – Google+ posts and a Google+ business page is going to be found by people using Google a lot faster and easier, after all when in Rome, erm – Google.

Functions – Google+ has given us lots of great functionality for business use. Hangouts for video conferencing, linking dynamic media such as animated GIFs, Images that are indexed into search, circles which helps your business segment your stakeholders and the +1 button that is now all over the web.

Customer Service – you can use Google+ to help provide customer services via video conferencing (hangouts) or online social conversation. Creating circles for your High Net Worth clients and your new prospects helps you provide the correct level of service to each of these stakeholders separately.

Community – Google+ is mostly made up of a male population with a high number of software developers and college students. There is opportunity here to tap into these two markets for your business directly

Overall I have been using Google+ since it first came out, and found that just by sharing content from my site, links back to my site and social media posts my PageRank has increased by a factor of two. And I have never paid a single cent for SEO.

I truly believe that Google+ is underrated and should be explored more by SMBs as a useful tool that you will grow to love. The key here is to keep using it, and interacting. Put the effort into Google+ and you will reap the rewards.

As always, Share+ Enjoy.

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami
Google+: Rami Mandow
LinkedIn: Rami Mandow
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Pinterest: Rami Mandow
Instagram: @CosmicRami
Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

This morning Facebook finally announced its IPO for $5 Billion. After about 8 years since its creation, almost 800 million members and changing the way humans communicate forever, Mark Zuckerberg has decided to take his baby and unleash it to the markets.

So big was the news, it crashed the SEC website in the States, and the topic immediately started trending on Twitter.

But what does this mean closer to home here in Australia? Well, us Australian’s seem to be some of the highest Facebook users in the world, with Gizmodo reporting that between 8 – 10 million users are ‘active’ in Australia. That’s a large portion of our population (approx. 36% - 45%) and this number is growing. We also spend lots of time on Facebook, clocking up approx. 7 hours and 19 minutes per month recorded in April 2010. This number will have surely grown since then, as we seem to be using Facebook more in 2012. So it is safe to assume that anything this IPO brings down the track, will impact a large and active audience here in Australia.

However, it won’t be the impact of the Mega Social Network on our daily social media usage, but rather the downstream effect this IPO has on our up and coming generations – of which only know the technological way of living.

Mark Zuckerberg has now created an array of billionaires and every Gen Y Social Tech Geek will now be influenced by his actions today. Young up and coming entrepreneurs dream of achieving the Zuckerberg success and today’s IPO hype will only fuel that fire which drives an entrepreneur into wanting to create the next big thing.

The Australian economy and environment is perfectly situated for this boom, with lots of exciting and potentially huge start-ups already popping up around the technology hubs of its Capital cities. For perfect examples look at Big Commerce, Annitel & SurfStitch – all of which have been growing in the hundreds % range.

The Facebook IPO will now trigger a wave of young and inspired Entrepreneurs to build, design, develop and collaborate on new projects that will seize the technology opportunity and help flourish these garage-based start-ups into powerful entities that too will one day trade on the Australian Stock Exchange.

No longer are there limitations on funding and starting up a business. Start-up costs have been severely reduced with outsourced services that Start-Ups can now utilise – such as Cloud Based Services, Start-Up Incubators, Social Media and Mobile technology (Did I mention that Australian’s also have a very high Smartphone penetration rate?!)

Thus, the combination of the Aussie culture to work hard and make something of yourself, the low barriers to market entry now available, the high level of usage of emerging technologies and the drive to build a company not driven by money is the perfectly flammable environment for young up and coming entrepreneurs to start their own conglomerate. And Mark Zuckerberg just lit the first match to get that fire burning.

As always, Share + Enjoy

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

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Social Media is well and truly wrapped in our personal lives, but many of us are now using Social Media for professional services. Sites such as LinkedIn, MeetUp and Networking for Professionals have pushed us into the unfamiliar territory of using our Social Networks not for play, but rather for business.

Whilst an obvious different approach should be taken between personal and business Social Networking, one of the more important things on your Profiles, is your professional bio.

Whilst Twitter only allows a short 160 characters, and most people like to put something about themselves + something witty (overused?), it’s always good to ensure your professional Social Networks have up to date, keyword enriched bio’s that reflect what your entire career and capabilities in an easy to digest format.

Below is my guideline into how to write your professional social media profile. Whilst it’s not set in stone, it is a good idea of some of the things you need to include in your Professional bio. Each paragraph should be concise and not fluffy. Think of it as a combination between your CV and an Elevator Pitch.

Don’t be afraid to market yourself effectively to reach your goals!

Introductory Paragraph

This paragraph should state current position and companies that you work for. It should also summarise and list your areas of expertise.

Short Summary Paragraph on History of positions held

This short paragraph should state period of service in total, positions held and for which companies.

Value to Organisation paragraph

This paragraph should highlight strengths / what you currently bring to the companies you work for.

Specialties

List by comma separation all the speciality skills you currently have.

Achievement 1

This paragraph should state an achievement that has occurred in a previous position that can be related to your current positions. Provide the Year of the achievement, the action you took and the result this achieved.

Achievement 2

This paragraph should state a contribution you have performed to the benefit of a former employer or business. This can also be an involvement of charity work. Once again state the Year of the achievement, the action you took and the result this achieved.

Achievement 3

Highlight any other achievements that add value towards your bio. Ensure that by this paragraph these are significant and not minor achievements.

Awards / Recognition

If you have been awarded any merits or recognition at business / industry level, list these here. List the year, the company who awarded it and the title of the award.

Current Project Paragraph

List current big-scale business / industry projects you are working on, who these projects are for and what your role is in these projects.

Contact Info

Provide a contact email or website address.

Any more fields we should be including in our Professional Social Media profile bios?

As always, Share + Enjoy

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

Tumblr: CosmicRami

Facebook. The biggest social network in the world. With memberships skyrocketing towards the 1 billion mark, its current population makes it the third largest nation in the world!

What does this mean for your business? More than likely, lots of your customers are on Facebook. Also and more importantly – lots of your customers and potential customers can be talking about your business on the social network.

Many Social Media strategies will focus solely on having a Facebook page, a presence, to help with your customer engagement and marketing. But this is 2012. Having a Facebook presence was so 2011. Now is the time to start building your Facebook pages into locations on the web where you customers can interact, engage, be rewarded and drive your revenue through the usage of Social Commerce, and/or Facebook’s own commerce facility: F-Commerce.

Social Media is not about selling. It’s about building the relationships which then drive the sales. So why not beef up your Facebook page with some tailored Apps to make it more ‘sticky’ – that is, have more activity on there. You can even give your visitors the opportunity to directly purchase from you.

Here are a few Facebook Apps that will help you achieve this:

Livechat for Fan Pages (Paid) – want to provide customer service in real-time through Facebook. This app lets you talk to your customers. Imagine the potential of solving someone’s complaint through this instant messenger service.

Forums for Pages (Free) – Does your business have current hot topics or issues you want your customers to engage in? What about ideas your customers help build? This app allows your customers to contribute to your businesses discussions.

Fan of the Week for Pages (Free) – why not reward one of your pages fans once per week for their activity on your page. This not only helps build a stronger relationship with your fans, it also helps get them to promote their winnings to their network.

Events Calendar (Free) – do you have real world events that you want your customers to attend, but don’t want to send out a whole heap of Facebook event invites (annoying?). Build a Calendar and promote it. You can load your events, and customers can click through to each Facebook event you link.

Maichimp (Free) – Since your customers and potential customers are spending so much time on Facebook, why not get them to join your e-newsletter risk whilst they are there. A simple form delivers subscriber information straight into your Mailchimp Database.

Payvment (Free) – want to sell directly through Facebook? With over 1.1 million users of this app, Payvment allows you to set up a Facebook store and sell your products / services directly.

BigCommerce (Free) – one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, BigCommerce allows you to add a shopfront to your Facebook page, providing you with an optimum Social Commerce Solution.

So that’s just a few ways you can add some more value to your Facebook page, increase your customer activity, engage with potential new customers and make the page more shareable. If most of your customers are on Facebook, why not make your page a place they want to re-visit over and over again?

The more people there are talking about your brand, the stronger your brand becomes. My theory is – Build it and they will come.

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

Tumblr: CosmicRami

It’s time for me to visit Madam Zelda again to ask her to look into her crystal ball and advise me what will be the biggest trends in Social Media and Mobile for 2012?

Well, not really. Not really into all that prediction stuff. However, I am into setting up a short list of what I believe will be big in the coming year within Social Media and Mobile. My crystal ball? Basically the conversations over the last 3 months of 2011 and so far this year …

So here’s a list of my 2012 trends…

Cloud for SMBs – With Cloud becoming bigger over on the Large Business end of the spectrum, this trend will trickle down into the SMB sector over 2012. Affordability, Availability and Security will become better understood by SMBs and there will be a sweeping uptake for Cloud Services as business owners and entrepreneurs embrace the power of collaboration.

Social TV – Reconnecting viewers with each other whilst they watch the same program is a hot topic for 2012. Rumours of Apple and Google both conceptualising or building a Social TV Platform are flying back and forth. People are watching more TV shoes online than ever before, and building a market around this could possibly yield a new and lucrative cash cow. Based on what we do on our Social Media platforms, TV programs aligned to our interests could be distributed to us and then connections made with people of the same interest.

Path – I have taken Path on board three weeks ago, and already it has started to go viral with my friends. Social Network users in 2012 will start to use their networks for personal usage, and expose their personal activities to those closest to them. Facebook will still remain the number one social network, but in 2012 users will start to change their usage behaviour with Facebook opting for more of a subscription-style activity, and use Path as their personal-style Social Network.

F-Commerce – As Facebook starts to shift away from the individual user on 2012, businesses and brands will start to use Facebook more as a form of communication to their customers. The implementation of Timeline and utilising apps means that businesses will tailor their Social Media services in Facebook through Apps, and begin to derive income directly from these customers using Facebook Commerce (F-Commerce). This will be further amplified with the usage of Mobile and NFC Chip technology.

NFC Chip Phones – As we start to use our smart phones more like our wallets, phone manufacturers will start to insert NFC chips into their phones, and businesses will start to provide NFC chip readers at their cash registers. Internet banking, Social Banking will push Mobile technology ahead in 2012 and NFC chip payment methods are going to change the transactional landscape. Paying for a product or service will be as frictionless as possible, and smartphone market penetration will continue to skyrocket.

So there you have it! Not the crystal ball, but some trends that I feel will become bigger over the next 12 months. Now comes the fun part – watching which of these above items develop! Let’s come back together again about this topic in 12 months from now and see how well I fared!

Do you think any other areas are going to explode in 2012? If so, please share by leaving a comment below.

As always, Share + Enjoy!

So we’ve finally hit the year 2012. And as at the time of writing this piece there are over 550 Social Media sites out there. Social Media has well and truly taken a firm grip on our lives and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be letting go. In fact, it will be the opposite, as our daily activities become more and more digitized and social media managed.

There are certain things Social Media does for me to help me with my personal daily activities.

Facebook keeps me in touch with everyone around me. Twitter keeps me in touch with not only friends, but my extended circles of interest. iTunes helps manage and play my music. Foursquare helps me keep up to date with all the latest local deals and in friendly competition with my friends. Instagram helps me become the perfect photographer. Tumblr is where I express my thoughts in my blogs (like this one!).

But now, there is a new Social Network on the block, and it allows me to do all this through one beautifully designed and presented user experience and user interface.

Path.

Path’s beauty lies in not only its clean simplicity, but also in the fact that  it allows me to share my personal story, my life journal of daily activities not with the world at large, but only the people who are within my inner network.

The Path interface is smooth and makes everything look like it is in HD quality. When scrolling down through the Path timeline, and it really is a timeline with time stamps, the user is presented with a history of ‘moments’ that each user connected to your Path has posted. This provides the rich content of being able to keep up with the latest or previous ‘moments’ your network has to offer. Arguably, this is similar to looking at your friends Facebook Timeline. However, Path has taken everyone’s timeline and made it into a social timeline, rather than a news feed.

When selecting the action functionality on Path, the user is presented with 6 options:

Photos – this function opens up the Path camera and allows the user to switch between photo/video and record a new image / video or upload one from your phone. Once selected the user is given the option to use one of Path’s in-built filters, much like Instagram, to enhance their images. 

Tagging – When the user selects the Tag option, they are first presented with their friends lists, and then offered the option of leaving a comment and tagging a location. Path has now made it easier and presented the user interface so beautifully, that the user wants to share their ‘shared moments’ with those around them.

Check-In – As with the Tagging feature, users can select their location then input a comment and tag friends with it.

Music – This feature allows users to let their network know what they are listening to. The first selections of songs that appear are based on what your network has previously listened to, and the search functionality allows users to select artists and their music. Once again, the ability to leave a comment, tag a friend and location are also present. Like what someone in your Path is listening to? With Path, you can now purchase music directly through the Path network.

Comment – The comment feature on Path is the exact as it is on the Facebook Status update or Twitter Tweet post. Without the character limitations though.

Asleep/Awake – A wonderful new feature that allows your network to see if you are available or not, this stunning function tells the world you are awake and ready to interact or you are asleep and not to be disturbed.

Once any of these features are used, the user then has the ability to post the update into their other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare, helping manage all these networks from the one platform.

One of the features I do find a little creepy about Path is that when you look at someone’s profile (their Path), that user is notified that you have reviewed it. Whilst this is nice to see who is interested in you, it can present a problem with the online stalkers who keep returning to your Path. However, it is understandable, because with Path you are not meant to add the world to your network, only those you want to share your personal journal with.

There is a theoretical number which states that our human brains can only sustain a maximum number of social relationships that are considered ‘stable’. This number is roughly 150. Path seizes the opportunities that Dunbar’s number presents and makes the user want to only build connections with those who they want to share their most personal experiences with.

We all got caught up in the Facebook craze of adding people to our networks who were not a part of our current lives. School friends we haven’t seen in 10 years, business contacts who requested to add us but we couldn’t say no, friends of friends we only ever met once – and yet we share so much of our personal activities without hesitation. Not to mention with all the information that Facebook provides to third parties.

Whilst I still think Facebook is an amazing social network, I have come to realise that Facebook for me now is more about business than it is about personal. Using Facebook as a cornerstone of your business’s social media strategy is a winning formula. Using Facebook as a person is becoming more and more difficult each day with the rapid changes, the thinking twice before posting your thoughts and sifting through Facebook’s terms & conditions / privacy policies which has become harder than learning quantum physics.

Does that mean I’m going to leave Facebook? No. Facebook has become an extension of my brain. It helps me keep up with all the latest events, it helps me remember everyone’s birthdays, and it helps me converse and engage with businesses. Not to mention all the benefits it provides my business, CosmicVillage.net,  on the world’s largest social network. As such, I will keep Facebook and continue to enjoy its growth and what it offers as the more open Social Network (i.e. use Facebook as I would use Twitter – as a business communication tool).

For me personally, Path will be the journal I want my inner circle to see, and engage with.

Path is measured in moments, which makes each of the posts something you shared more special. Path allows me to achieve all my personal activities (Check-ins, music, photos) with those closest to me, so that they can interact with me on the personal level I know them for. And when I want to share something with the bigger world, Path allows me to post directly to Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Foursquare from the one application, avoiding having multiple accounts to manage.

I don’t work for Path, nor am I a representative of them. I just find Path a truly richer and more in-depth personal social network for all those personal moments.

The world doesn’t want to hear about or see what I’m having for breakfast. My personal connections do.

Social Media plays a huge role in our lives today. Most of us use it on a daily basis as a minimum, and many of us use it on the go, from our smartphones. Needless to say, Social Media now plays a vital role in our daily communications and obtaining information. As businesses have begun to recognise the value of our time on Social Media sites, they too have now jumped into the Social Media game, by having a presence in Social Media. It is here where the two meet: Consumers and Business. And it is here where, businesses must monitor, like any marketing strategy, what is working and what isn’t.

Social Monitoring is the process of using Social Analytics Tools and applying this data to measure, review, evaluate and highlight business achievements and campaigns.

As businesses are starting to see the value of their presence in Social Media and start communicating, engaging and influencing through their Social Media Platforms with their customers, naturally, they would want to see the value of using Social Media and the metrics it can provide into how effective Social Media is for them. As such, businesses can now use a whole range of Social Analytics tools to help them understand their brand engagement on Social Media Platforms.

Thus, it is not enough for businesses to only have a Social Media presence but also to be monitoring their activities, their customers and their success through their Social Media presence.

Social Analytics and Social Monitoring tools can provide businesses with a huge array of data for them to pour over, analyse and utilise to their advantage. For example, businesses can measure their positive vs. negative sentiment ratio which measures the number of good vs. bad mentions about the business. Businesses can also measure detailed demographic data such as Gender, Age and Location of their customers. The ability to also gather data across all Social Media platforms (along with the web) to continually monitor any negative feedback, and address this in real time is extremely imperative in a world where every Smartphone is now a consumers tool to praise or destroy a business – in real time.

One very important aspect of Social Monitoring is that you are able to tie this back to your Return On Investment. Remembering, now we don’t only measure ROI in financial terms, but also in digital assets, in online reputation management and in brand equity, businesses can tie this data back to their one true reason to exist – revenue.

An example of this would be to graph over x amount of time, the number of positive sentiments a business received as measured through Social Media Analytical tools. Then on the same graph, overlay the revenue the business earned for the same period. Any correlation?

Another example would be to measure the value of revenue generated out of Social Media campaigns. Graph this against traditional marketing campaigns. Now look at the underlying costs of your Social Media campaigns vs. your traditional marketing campaigns. Which provided a better net return? Which had a bigger reach? Which required fewer resources?

Social Media Monitoring tools come in different shapes and forms, and all of them can provide you with the tools you need to get started in measuring your campaigns.

There are free tools such as: Twitsprout; Klout; SocialMention; Facebook Insights; Twitter analytics and there are enterprise tools such as BuzzNumbers, Radian6 and Dialogix.

Generally, the free tools provide you with a high level overview, however for a much more focused and accurate result, purchase and usage of the enterprise tools is highly recommended. Whilst some businesses may see this as an additional investment in Social Media and be reluctant, but can businesses really put a price on the data and information these tools can provide? If so then businesses are only achieving half of what they should out of Social Media, after all, there is no use of jumping into any marketing campaign unless you are able to measure its effectiveness. That includes Social Media.

As always, Share + Enjoy!

Lets Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

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Over the next 3 weeks, I am blogging a 3 part series about how Social Media and Smartphones are the best technology marriage we have seen in years, how smartphones are driving a new web for us all and how are smartphones are going to replace our wallets. Tune in!

The UK Riots were ‘apparently’ caused by Social Media networking on Smartphones; the San Francisco BART operators shut off 4 Mobile communication towers to avoid protestors organising themselves and several witnesses all used their smartphones to capture the moment a concert stage rig collapsed in Indiana.

It seems everything we hear on the news there is some involvement of Social Media and that it is mostly generated by the general public using their Smartphones.

This week the question was raised if the Social Media and Smart Phone marriage was a benefit or limitation to our societies. Personally, I think it is a benefit and has helped our society come a long way. Below I describe why.

The biggest topic last week was as @pembo put it so eloquently in his article (featured in The Punch) ‘The World’s Biggest Bludger Uprising’. The London Riots. The riots caused by many youths have been linked to Social Media and Smartphone usage, as a key driver in the organisation of such a destructive event. Twitter was blamed for the social network to host the organisers’ information, and Blackberry the tool used by the culprits to communicate. After 4 days or rioting several government officials played around with the idea of having a ‘kill switch’ on Social Networks.

To be blunt, this has to be one of the most hypocritical ideas in history. Only several months before, these officials were praising the use of Social Networks and Smartphones for the liberation of countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

The mechanism, communication and tools were the same. A large mass of people organising themselves using the latest technology to revolt against a common cause. But are the Social Networks and Smartphones to blame here?

No. They are neither the cause nor effect of the outcome. They are simply the medium through which the outcome travels. As such, placing a ‘kill switch’ at the power of a few to control the masses is not only a huge leap backwards, it’s actually counterproductive. What would have happened if Mubarak or Gaddafi had a kill switch on their nation’s social networks?

So in conclusion, the parallels between the benefits of Social Media and Smartphones to our way of living are very clear, and derive a positive outcome for societies around the world. We are more connected, we now have all the information we need in real time, we have built a web of trust on our connections opinions and we can save more lives in events like natural disasters.

Should anyone person, organisation or government control Social Media, or have the ability to switch it off? No. Social Media, like the internet does not belong to anyone of us. It belongs to all of us. As such, we should be able to use it as we like. 

What do you think? Should Social Media be controlled or should it remain free for all to use as they see fit?

As Always – Share + Enjoy!

Next Week’s Blog Teaser: How Mobile is your Web?

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

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Hashtag: #MobileWeb

We all have some form of social networks in our lives, be it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr …. We can’t seem to stop using them. It’s where our friends and families are, it’s where our work colleagues are and most importantly – it’s where our customers are.

So how do we capture this rapidly growing market for our business? Easy! Build a Social Network within a Social Network – much like the Russian Babushka dolls.

I call this the Social Network Babushka Effect. It’s not hard to do, any business can utilise the already existing infrastructure and the model is already proven to be successful.

To do so there is no need to hire a whole development team to build an entire social network around your business, rather look at using the existing social networks to create your content and utilise the free tools available. It won’t take long to develop, and your customer base is already out there awaiting you to deliver some quality content that relates directly to them. From there, they will do all the marketing for you, as these networks spread virally.

The winning factor in developing your own social network is to carefully plan it out, build it around upcoming events and always conceptualise your strategy.

Take the time to plan out what your customers are wanting now and in the future. Think about what content you would deliver through this social network, and pre-plan all your blogs, your campaigns and the goals you want to achieve. Then plan how you will measure your success, what metrics you will track and how often you will make these measurements.

Think about any upcoming events e.g. conferences, gatherings, concerts that your plan can relate to and plan out how this can relate back to your social network. This process helps you develop a strategy that allows you to stay on top of the rapidly changing environment and drive your message clearly from start to end.

Then comes the easy part. Build this into your Social Media Strategy and Marketing Plan and go for it! Have your Social Media employees build the campaign (using tools such as Facebook Connect) and send it out to your client base, tweet about it, make reference to it on your blog and website, tell your family and friends about it and before you know it, it will grow organically.

Whilst this isn’t a new concept, there have been a few examples of how this has worked very well for many businesses.

Intel recently launched the ‘Museum of Me’ application, which basically sources the data straight from your Facebook. Intel didn’t develop the infrastructure to use they simply collated the existing data and built a social network that applies within Facebook to give users exactly what they want – a beautifully categorised art exhibition (including soundtrack!) to share with friends and family.

Today, Lady Gaga launches her Social Network within a Social Network campaign to allow her ‘little monsters’ the chance to win tickets to her exclusive and intimate Sydney concert on July 13. This Babushka Social Network already utilises all the features of Facebook: likes, photo sharing, tagging, viral marketing and the content is created by the users themselves – uploading photos of themselves to win tickets to her concert. The key to Gaga’s success of this social network within a social network is that it is well planned out (Strategy to promote her new album ‘Born This Way’), it’s all about the content driver (users) and it links to her upcoming events (Sydney Exclusive Concert).

The benefits of the Social Networks Babushka Effect is that it is very cheap to develop for all businesses, it taps into an existing massive market where your consumers are currently spending their time, and it provides them with content that they can share with people whom have common interests.

All whilst your business, brand and social media portfolio gain lots of exposure, digital equity and increased online trust and reach.

So businesses should start to think about what they can do for their upcoming campaigns, and how to factor in a social network within the social networks that can help drive their messages to their target markets through social media.

This can help boost social media consumer bases, help provide valuable direct customer feedback and help spread the word virally for your business brand / image / message.

By building a Babushka Social Network, you are increasing your presence in Social Media and thereby enhancing your reach, trust, influence and engagement with your consumers. There really isn’t much more importance in Social Media marketing these days, then to grab a share of the market that is awaiting you to deliver the goods!

As always, Share + Enjoy

Follow me on Twitter: @cosmicrami

Facebook Groups was created to allow social networkers share content with a smaller group of people rather than their whole friends list. Groups allow you to update posts to the group, survey the group and chat with everyone at once.

Groups are great for creating smaller social networks within the Facebook network such as family groups, teammates, co-workers, special interest etc.

The difference between Facebook Groups and Facebook Pages is that groups are created by anyone who would like to share a common interest with each other. Facebook Pages is more related to your business, your brand and your product.

One thing I have found that could be a little annoying about groups is that anyone can add you to a group, and then you receive a multitude of spam as notifications, emails, status updates or comments. However, there is a way you can control this.

Change Your Security Settings

To stop people from adding you to random groups, simply:

Go to:

Accounts (up in the top right corner) then select Account Settings then click on the Notifications tab.

Scroll down and select the options you would like to tailor your Facebook account to.

I have found that if you de-select the box Add you to a Group (4^th option down) this will stop anyone adding you into a new random group

Edit Your Notifications Settings

If you have already been included in groups, unfortunately there is no way to delete yourself from them (as yet). However, you can also stop the notifications coming through to you.

All that you will need to do here is:

Firstly select the group you have already been added to.

When inside the group, near the top right, click on the box Edit Settings

A new smaller box will appear. Here set the following options:

In the drop down menu, select the option Only Posts I Subscribe to

Then de-select the email notification box (remove tick)

Lastly, de-select the box Send Me Group Chat Messages

Facebook Groups has lots of great benefits, and for special interests, upcoming events, team activities or family reunions, Groups is the best option to use, as you can tailor this service to the people it matters most to. 

By tailoring your settings, your friends within your social networks will be unable to add you to a group that you cannot remove yourself from, and allow you greater control over what information you receive when you are part of a group. This helps with any spam you would be receiving from the group content.

Lastly for business purposes, use Facebook Pages, as this provides a no spam environment, helps you measure and track your social metrics and is a much more professional tool to use.

Happy Social Networking!

As Always Share + Enjoy

Follow me on Twitter: @cosmicrami