David Armano

Not long ago, I found myself talking with several clients about a trend I felt would truly impact their business. Social Sharing. There's no brilliance to identifying this as a meaningful trend, we see social sharing everywhere. In the real world and most recently on networks as people not only share what they are doing, but what they are reading, listening to, and even purchasing.

For further proof that "social business" is coming of age, Altimeter recently conducted some research (both quantitative and qualitative) of enterprise grade organizations (1000 or more employees). The report focuses on readiness for crisis scenarios, but includes several best practices and findings which illustrate how organizations need to structure themselves for social business.

I've been deeply immersed in Google Plus for the last week or so, not only following what's being said about the service but actually using it, kicking the tires and making observations along the way. For what it's worth, I think Google Plus has an incredible amount of potential for a number of reasons. Here's a few thoughts or more accurately opinions. Everyone has a take, so the only thing can offer here is that I've had these thoughts in my head while using the service but wanted to give it some time before putting it into writing.

Originally posted on Edelman Digital via Greg Lipman

In oversimplified terms, SEO to the average company is a process of performing research into the words people are using when searching or discussing online. Company X then refines the copy and metadata on their site to match the vernacular people are using to improve their relevance in search result rankings. Of course this is a very simplified description. For more information click here (PDF).

Originally posted on Harvard Business Review.

For a clue to social media's future, we need not look much further than Washington. On the one hand, you have "Weinergate," former NY Senator Anthony Weiner's Twitter fiasco, which was essentially user error. He failed to negotiate the thin line between digital communication and social communication, between private and public.

I finally found time to cash in on one of my Google+ invites after taking a much needed vacation. My initial assessment? Google has actually figured out how humans work, so mark Google+ as one to watch and ignore the pundits that are telling you it's no threat to Facebook.

Colleague Steve Rubel and I were recently invited to participate in a very cool initiative coordinated by Eloqua‘s Joe Chernov and Jess3 – a social media playbook for industry professionals dubbed the “Social Media ProBook.” In it, you’ll find valuable perspectives from a variety of practitioners ranging from Ford’s Scott Monty, to Citi’s Frank Eliason, and HP’s Liz Philips among many others (disclaimer, HP is an Edelman client).

If you work in either an agency, consultancy or professional services firm, then you've likely seen an article or five over the past few years making the case for agencies to act more like start-ups. The logic goes something like this: start-ups are nimble and product focused.

On the heels of our influence panel at Mesh 2011, Klout has introduced a new feature they call "+K". A simple way to think of it is a like button for influence which connects someone to a topic which you choose. The move by Klout to add this feature signifies a broader effort which impacts conversations on the subject matter of digital influence—that influence is meaningless unless you have context such as what subject(s) people and organizations are credible in.

Last week I had the honor of performing the opening Keynote at Community Conference 2011 hosted in Copenhagen Denmark. A delightful, high quality event with attendees coming from all parts of Scandinavia and Europe, it also featured talks from Dell's Bill Johnston and Good Magazine's Max Schorr.