The quest for BigFoot in Social Marketing

Does BigFoot exist? Well, in the digital world it exists in the term: Digital Footprint.

Wikipedia defines "Digital Footprints" as traces left by someone's activity in a digital environment. In social media/ social marketing, "digital footprint" can refer to the size of one's online presence as it relates to the number of individuals he or she is interacting with. How many followers on Twitter, How many friends on Facebook, How many connections on LinkedIn, etc. – these all make up your digital footprint.

The topic of “personal brand” in social marketing has become more and more popular, as a career tool in growing and establishing one's expertise and digital following. Every blogger, Tweeter, and online marketer is competing for their share of YOUR attention. Lucky for me, at this moment I have it!

The Anti-Social Truth

Staying active on social networking sites can be exhausting! There are so many places to network online, and they all require time and attention. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning, Foursquare, Flickr, and more are popping up every day. I have found it difficult to be everywhere at once.

Some people become obsessed with updating statuses and checking responses. (Yes, I admit I am guilty of this!) Most people are connected to at least one social networking site on their mobile phones. We tend to always want to be seen and heard by the masses of followers that we have collected.

There are tools that are helpful in managing multiple social sites, and most of them connect to each other in one form or another. Personally, I am a fan of HootSuite, where I can check and update Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook all in one place.

The New A,B,C’s

Imagine you are in pre-school in 2010. What would you relate the A,B,C’s to? They certainly have changed since I was a kid. Here’s my idea of the new A,B,C’s:

A is for Apple (as in the computer most graphic artists, website developers, and techie people use)

B is for Blog (where anyone can share their thoughts about anything with anyone anywhere)
 
C is for Content (what every information sharing thing needs to survive)
 
D is for Digg (where fascinating, funny, informative, etc. articles, videos, pics, etc. are shared)
 
E is for ebay (where you can sell/bid on/buy anything form anyone, anywhere)
 
F is for Facebook (our own personalized, digital scrapbook that can be shared with your own personally selected group of friends)
 
G is for Google (the search engine and internet tools mecca)

Will Google's"superphones" save the world?

Google is on its way to becoming the "Wal-Mart" of technology consumption -AKA one stop shopping for all of your online connecting needs. Google's newest adventure of 2010 is the announcement of a mobile phone called Nexus One (with phone Applications that connect to all of the other Google internet resources).

From googleblog.blogspot.com: "we're pleased to announce a new way for consumers to purchase a mobile phone through a Google hosted web store. The goal of this new consumer channel is to provide an efficient way to connect Google's online users with selected Android devices. We also want to make the overall user experience simple: a simple purchasing process, simple service plans from operators, simple and worry-free delivery and start-up."