This is completely awesome!!  What do you think about this graphic?

 

Google Places (http://google.com/places) is a free service from Google where business owners can market, promote, and advertise their business. It lets business owners leave their mark on Google Maps and list various information about their business including their business name, products/services, address, contact details, operating hours, accepted modes of payment, photos (of establishment/products), etc.

Google Places was originally known as the Google Local Business Center which was launched on March 15, 2005. Quoting from the press release relating to the launch:

 The Google Local Business Center enables businesses to more effectively reach consumers searching on Google Local with accurate, useful and up to date information about their business. By enabling businesses to easily add or edit information whenever they like, businesses do not have to worry about outdated content or publishing deadlines. Businesses do not need a website to add a business listing to Google Local through the Local Business Center.

 The service was renamed to Google Places on April 20, 2010 because, according to Google, they wanted to better connect it with “Place Pages.”

Along with the name change, Google also introduced a few new features, including:

•  Service Areas – This feature allows businesses to indicate which geographic areas they serve. Additionally, it allows businesses without a storefront or office location to make their address private.
•  Advertising – For just $25/month, Google enables business owners in select cities to make their listings stand out on Google.com and Google Maps using Tags.
•  Google Business Photos – Through this service, business owners can request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business for use on their Place Pages. (Note: As of December 7, 2010, Google photographers are visiting businesses in select cities in the US, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.)
•  Customized QR Codes – A QR code, which stands for Quick Response code, is a specific matrix barcode (a two-dimensional code). The QR code can be read by dedicated QR barcode readers and most smartphones through the use of an app.

QR codes can be used to do many things, such as to navigate to a website, dial a phone number, and all sorts of other things. The QR codes that Google Places provides will take people directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for the business that owns the QR code.

After you’ve created your Google Places listing, Google will provide you with a customized QR code that will help you market your Place Page more effectively.

One great benefit of having your business listed on Google Places is that you will have the chance to get your business appearing as one of the results on Google’s universal search results (via the local business results).

 

In honor of Community Manager Appreciation Day, Social Fresh created this AWESOME Infographic!  I would like to take this moment to wish all the Community Managers a great day and kudos for the great jobs you do (most of the time unseen great jobs you do) keeping the communities you mange afloat!

 

What do you love MOST about being a Community Manager?

Did you know that you can use one site to update all your social media? You can sign up for a free HootSuite account and easily update all your networks in one fell swoop.  You can do it “in the cloud” using a PC and a browser or you can do it from your mobile device. You can update to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more social networks.

Another program that lets you update all your social media networks at once is called yoono. This is a program that can be added to your Firefox browser as an add-on tool. You can automatically view and update your social networks with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo and others. It does not have as many networks available as Social Oomph and ping.fm but it looks promising as they plan to add more social media networks eventually.

Gizapage is another promising aggregator. It says it’s an integrated social hub bringing together your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and more so that you can share with all networks at the same time, and you can pick and choose which networks too. It also lets you view your full profile from one spot. The problem with it is that you have to ask for a quote. It looks really great but that automatically makes me think it will be expensive. I put in for a quote but haven’t heard anything yet.

Social aggregators aren’t new, they’ve been around as long as social media has been around. If you do a Google search on social media aggregators you’re likely to find a lot of them both working and defunct. You’ll find free aggregators, and premium fee based services. They come and go so choose a popular one that is widely used so that you don’t have to start over. Part of using an aggregator is to save time. Setting one up takes some time and work but is worth it in the end so no matter which one you choose definitely make sure you do choose one in order to stop wasting time duplicating tasks.

 

Saving time on social media is imperative if you want to escape time wasters and time suckers. By setting up a system you can avoid many of the distracting games, gossip, and out and out worthless parts of social media. There is a time to play games, but it’s not while you’re at work. Even though you don’t have a boss looking over your head, the time wasting will catch up with you if you don’t get a handle on it.

Plan for Success — If you have no road map to your destination you’re not likely to make it. Sure, sometimes people accidentally hit the lottery, but most of the time success comes from careful and thoughtful planning. Don’t set out blindly for a hit or miss effort. Instead, make a plan and stick to it, adjusting as necessary.

Implement Automation — Social media automation is a great way to save time. There is no good reason why you should not schedule automatically new posts, new articles and new information across all your social media. There are many tools available that do a great job. This will enable you to use your social media time more wisely in conversation with your potential clients rather than just pushing information to them.

Schedule your time — If you set up automation you can then carefully schedule your time for using social media for being, social. Imagine that! The automation of updating friends and followers of blog posts will create time for you to actually read other people’s tweets, re-tweet good information, and to actually participate. The trick is to schedule the time, and stick to the schedule.

Outsource — Yes, you can outsource a lot of aspects of social media. A virtual assistant can set up all your automation. He/She can also keep track of your metrics, and alert you to important tweets or buzz that you need to address in a blog post or in a direct message to someone. A good long term virtual assistant can even answer your direct messages for you when needed.

Turn it off — You read that right. When you’re off work, turn off your business social media. When you are doing other work, turn off your social media completely. There is no reason to have it on 24/7 because that will only serve to distract you from money making tasks. There are better ways to monitor social media with automation and RSS feeds.

With proper planning, implementation and perseverance your social media efforts can and will pay off to bring you more traffic, more business, and more success than you ever thought possible. The important thing to learn is to control your time since that is your most important asset. If you can do something else that earns you more money, do that instead, while using tools that let you continue with using social media strategically.