Simplify the Web

There has been a lot of changes within the social domain these last few months. Many of them have been trying to optimize and take advantage of existing technologies in a way a company can maximize the ROI of the channel.

Many people have found the social media channel a difficult one to break into and maintain. So far it seems the only people taking advantage of the social channel are celebrities and gossip sites like TMZ or Access Hollywood. The question remains for the small business, "How can I take advantage of Social Media and make it work for me?"

The answer is: "not easily".

Social Media has become an excellent way to build your personal presence online or to extend a network of customer service to existing clients / customers. However if you aren't willing to invest the amount of time it takes to keep that steam going, then my suggestion would be to NOT use it in the traditional way. Here are a couple of thoughts you may be able to leverage social media for you but not in a way that you overwhelm yourself and your company.

Google has made some interesting waves in this area in the last couple of months. Waves that make people stop and think about how to make use of the social media market. Google rolled out a major change with caffeine (their latest algorithm)  and a great new integration into gmail called Google Buzz.

Google Buzz seems to be Google's answer to Twitter, yet in an interesting form. Check out this post if you would like a quick down on dirty what it does. It's a streamlined version of twitter only one change, you "buzz" with other people in your contacts. It's a private venue of buzzes and integrated into one of the largest email clients available. Interesting move.

What came out shortly before buzz and is probably a good motivator for Google to come out with a product like buzz, is the real time search results.

Real time search keeps you updated on hot topics on the net at the moment and show up live as they happen within the search results for that topic. It's seasonal basically. If the topic is hot, they'll put it in the results. So, if you want to leverage social in a way that gets you in front of people, try tweeting about a hot topic. It gets your twitter in front of people, builds your network, but doesn't come with the responsibility of staying current and cumbersome for your company.

Buzz with people you know. Find people within Gmail that you don't know and buzz with them. Both these approaches keep you under wraps and let you grow as fast as you can handle without feeling overwhelmed.