A Regular Roundup of Social Media Musings
by Anna Gerz & Mike Wilt

This month’s collection of all things Social Media plays politics while Google continues its quest for world domination.

(FB) Ch-Ch-Changes

Arguably the biggest news in the world of social media this month stemmed from Facebook’s f8 conference. While we would be remiss to not cover this topic – we think Andy DeBrunner did a great recap of what B2B marketers really need to know about the “new” Facebook. Essentially, we can boil the updates into 3 main points:

• Real-time serendipity lets your friends exactly what you’re doing, as you are doing it and allows them to join
• Open Graph is the programming change that allows for real-time serendipity
• Timelines will roll out over the coming weeks, replacing your traditional profile with more of a digital scrapbook

Friending Elephants and Donkeys

Two short months ago we mentioned how the slick talking Beltway-types were taking up the art of #hashtagging. The trend continues and is sprouting some social-inspired legs that are bound to be fun to watch at the very least.

As presidential campaigns march on, both social media strategies and social media companies’ involvement in politics continue to evolve. This month we saw a Republican debate sponsored by Google (read: YouTube), the POTUS holding a jobs-focused town hall at LinkedIn HQ (which decked out their site in the ol’ stars and stripes for the occasion) and more events/interactions undoubtedly planned leading up to the 2012 election. This will be fun to follow because, if you think about it, politics and B2B in the social media realm are amazingly similar. Every politician “selling” their brand in social media channels is essentially building towards a four year buying cycle. No single tweet will generate a sale/vote.

Turning from self-promotion to functional, purposeful interaction, the White House has launched “We the People.” The purpose of the site is to submit and sign petitions to the White House, all on a pretty easy to use website. While there currently is no direct social network integration it isn’t a stretch to imagine petition authors leveraging platforms to drum up support. There is also a fun crowdsource feeling to the site that starts to feel like a Rate this____/American Idol government entity. So, there is a social media relevance here, but what about B2B? The similarities lie in the customer voice. The White House site is affectively providing an unfiltered forum for opinions, thoughts and proposals and--though results are yet to be seen--plans to act on them. This concept is just one amazing tool social media can provide a B2B market.

Google+ Hits 100…Updates

Not to be outdone by Facebook and f8, Google also had its share of blog-worthy activity this month. In addition to plastering their logo as the backdrop to the YouTube debates, we saw big updates in the Google+ world.

• Google+ is officially open to the public, and saw a traffic increase of nearly 13 times the previous usage. While Google+’s 43 million users pales in comparison to Facebook, and it is already the 8^th most visited social network, it is certainly impressive considering it’s short, 3-month life.
• Android users now have mobile access for Hangouts, with iOS support on the way.
• The search functionality has also been expanded on Google+, which now lets you search for people and topics.

We will be keeping an eye out for the next 100 changes, especially when Google+ finally opens up for brand pages.

And for our monthly items of note:

• Tweetdeck & Facebook character limits – While Twitter seems have cracked down on the 140 character limit eliminating the “TMI” ability on TweetDeck, which it acquired a few months ago, Facebook has increased the character limit to 5,000 characters for a post, with abundant speculations about Facebook setting the stage to incorporate blogging.
• Is it too early for Holiday tech toys talk? – Maybe Amazon’s late-month announcements have primed the pump, but with announcements by Apple, Google and many others planned, this holiday season is bound to see plenty of new screens and services for your social media emersion.

What has caught your social-savvy eye this month?