Get Started with Social Selling

Social Selling

What's the one number you need to know about social media and social networking? 25.

25% of time spent on the internet today is spent on social media.

Nearly 25% of Americans use social networking sites several times per day.

And more than 25% of the people in the world have a social media account. THE WORLD.

So why aren't you trying to use social media to generate leads and nurture prospects? Because, obviously, you should be. Businesses everywhere, from small firms to multinational corporations are using social media for marketing, advertising and brand awareness. But some salespeople have been slow to adopt for direct sales purposes. Understandably, it can be a bit overwhelming. Especially for someone unfamiliar with social media. But it's really just another way to communicate -- just like email (and the telephone before that). So here are some tips to help you get started with social selling:

Get Started with Social Selling by:

1. Create (and use) professional social media profiles on Twitter and LinkedIn.
2. Optimize social media profiles.
3. Seek referrals on LinkedIn by giving recommendations & endorsing others.
4. Follow at least 100 new people (20x per day) on Twitter including:
• Industry Thought Leaders
• Prospects
• Customers 
• Sales Gurus
5. Set up Google Alerts for competitors/prospects/customers/industry terms.
6. Post at least 3x per week about:
• Industry News
• Prospects/Customers
• Competitors
• Thought Leaders
• Photos when Travelling
• Sales Best Practices
• Personal Interests (20% of time is okay)
7. Join industry-specific groups on LinkedIn.
8. Add LinkedIn connector to Outlook on laptop.
9. Download LinkedIn Connected app for mobile phone.
10. Connect Salesforce account to Twitter.
11. Subscribe to industry and thought leadership blogs.
12. Subscribe to LinkedIn Sales Navigator (optional).
13. Blog (optional).

New Business Sales Daily Social Selling Routine Checklist:

1. Open LinkedIn and Twitter in browser tab (don’t close – just like email).
2. Find content to share.
3. Share general content on social networks.
4. Share specific content with prospects & customers on Twitter & LinkedIn (just like you would via email).
5. Look at who liked, retweeted, favorited or commented on your posts on LinkedIn & Twitter.
6. Review LinkedIn alerts.
7. Check on who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile.
8. Send personalized connection request to any prospects who looked at your LinkedIn profile.
9. Send personalized connection requests to any prospects you emailed thru Outlook yesterday.
10. Send personalized connection requests to people who engaged with your LinkedIn posts.
11. Follow people who engaged with your tweets.
12. Follow people who followed you on Twitter.
13. Respond to messages (just like you would email).

Top Prospect Weekly Social Selling Routine Checklist:

1. Open LinkedIn and Twitter in browser tab (don’t close – just like email).
2. Find content specifically for/about top prospects.
3. Share content specifically with top prospect (via email and social media).
4. Like and Retweet posts from top prospects.

Social Retention/Growth Weekly Routine Checklist:

1. Open LinkedIn and Twitter in browser tab (don’t close – just like email).
2. Find content specifically for/about current customers.
3. Share content specifically with current customers (via email and social media).
4. Like and Retweet posts from current customers.

Have other tips for salespeople looking to use social media to start selling? Leave them in the comments below:

Facebook, Twitter and Google+ cover photo sizes

You may have noticed my new cover photo (see above).

Well Twitter just announced its new profile page redesign, including a new "Cover Photo" feature that's their attempt to catch up with what their two main competitors -- Facebook and Google+ -- have already done.

Originally posted on September 18, 2012. Updated on April 25, 2014: Twitter redesigned their profiles again with new, larger cover photo images = 1,500 pixels by 500 pixels.

It's a way for people to express themselves beyond their profile picture and bio. But its also one of my favorite new universal features amongst social networks. Why? Because it allows users to upload a profile picture of just their face (which, by definition, is what a profile picture should be) and now use the cover photo for pictures of their dog, baby, significant other, favorite athlete, actor, team, etc.

But unfortunately, it's not that simple. While most profile pictures today are a standard square:

• Facebook: 128px by 128px
• Twitter: 400px by 400px
• Google+: 252px by 252px

...each of these social networks have different size constraints for their cover photos:

• Facebook: 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall (or 3404px by 1260px)
• Twitter: 1,500 pixels wide by 500 pixels tall (or 3756px by 1878px)
• Google+: 480 pixels wide by 270 pixels tall (or 3840px by 2160px)

So please, change your profile picture to an image of yourself, by yourself, and then take advantage of this new social network feature. But if you want to create a cover photo that meets each site's recommendations, you'll have to have 3 different images or at least 3 different crops of your image for each.

An image is worth 1000 retweets

An image is worth a thousand retweets.

The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" was long attributed to Confucius as a Chinese proverb, but the expression was actually first used in a 1911 newspaper article discussing journalism and publicity.

The exact phrase first appears in an 1918 newspaper advertisement for the San Antonio Light which says:

One of the Nation's Greatest Editors Says:
One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
The San Antonio Light's Pictorial Magazine of the War
Exemplifies the truth of the above statement—judging from the warm
reception it has received at the hands of the Sunday Light readers

Today, the phrase is a full blown cliche, forbad by journalists and newspapers around the world. But with the popularity of social media and its ever-growing reach, the context of the phrase now takes new meaning.

Today, with the constant stream of posts, blogs, and tweets, it can be difficult to differentiate and emerge from the masses. But one simple way to draw the eye to your posts, and to your account, is with images.

If the objective of every social media account is to gain followers, and the intention of every post is to promote engagement, then the best (and easiest) way to attain your goals is by adding a photo, picture, or image to everything you do. But don't just add a profile picture and cover photo (which you should definitely be doing), you should also add an image to every tweet, every blog post, and every Facebook update. You'll see your likes, favorites and retweets increase almost immediately. And before you know it, every image will be worth a thousand retweets. 

6 simple tips for social media

At a high level, social media seems very simple. Post this, follow her, retweet that, connect with him. But after you dive in, it can be a struggle to stay afloat. You quickly realize that it can be much more complicated than those simple one-click actions. It doesn't have to be.

Here are six simple tips to help you gain more followers and get more likes:

Adopt early: One of the easiest ways to gain popularity on any social media platform is to be an early adopter. Those who join early not only learn the ropes faster, but can also take advantage of the domino effect of all the other people who join from that day forward. Each person that joins a new network immediately follows every one of their friends who are already on that network. If you're not on that list, they may never look for you again.

Follow friends: You should not only follow all of your friends from day one, but also occasionally check to see if any new friends have joined. Some platforms are great about this (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), sending you notifications any time your friend from Facebook joins. But others take a little more effort. Check your settings or search tools until you find a "Search My Contacts" button or similar link. Most of your friends will follow back, they likely just didn't realize your account existed.

Follow back: The number one rule you'll hear the most when attending networking seminars, reading social media books, or watching a live webinar about social networks is "Follow Back!" It's something I'm not crazy about (for other reasons), but it truly is the quickest and easiest way to gain the most followers and increase interactions with your posts.

Post once per day: Unless you already have over 2,000 followers, friends, and/or connections I'd advise against posting any more than once per day. Spamming people's timelines and feeds with your opinions and stories is the fastest way to get unfollowed, unfriended, deleted, and blocked. If you have more than one post in mind, save it as draft or schedule it go live the following day.

Update profile: When someone finally does find you on any social network, the first thing they will do is read your profile. Keep it short, simple, and creative. But also make it descriptive. No matter how eccentric you are in real-life, your profile should be direct and to the point.

Add profile picture: I lied, the first thing they will do is look at your profile picture. Many times, they won't even make it to your profile because they didn't even realize it was you. If you want people to follow you, replace that Twitter egg with a headshot. Don't have a professional photo? Fine. Just upload anything for now. You can worry about putting your best face forward later.


I know a lot of my readers are also social media gurus and social networking ninjas, so please feel free to post your other tips in the comments section as well:

SEM, SMA, CPC, and the holy grail of marketing acronyms: ROI

So many acronyms. But only one matters: ROI.

And when calculating your return on investment (ROI) on search engine marketing (SEM) or social media advertising (SMA) spends, the only acronym that can prove ROI is CPC (cost per click).

How? 

CPC is directly correlated to ROI.

Let me explain.

Over the past year I've been advertising on all the major platforms, and here are the results:

• AdWords: $0.54 CPC
• Facebook: $0.08 CPC
• LinkedIn: $2.00 CPC
• Twitter: $0.21 CPC
• YouTube: $0.41 CPC

What does all that mean?

For my dollar, Facebook is hands down the cheapest advertising platform at just 8 cents per click. But just because LinkedIn costs me 2 dollars for every click doesn't mean it's wasted money. In fact, the advertising platform with the highest average CPC is likely your best spent cents. 

Why?

As long as you've fine tuned your ad copy through A/B testing and honed in on your target audience with the right keywords (and any other targeting criteria available), the platform with the highest CPC is also the network with the largest, most-active population of people you're trying to reach. It's also the network where your competitors are advertising. That's why it costs so much to engage with them.

But every industry will have different results. So which platforms are you advertising on? And which has the highest ROI?

FourSquared: gamifying the check-out

What if customers could only check-in on Foursquare (or Facebook) after they check-out and pay for products? How could businesses benefit from this more restricted social network interaction? And what would customers stand to gain from this major overhaul of these social networks?

The idea behind check-in apps and social networks is gamification. Gamification is the use of game mechanics in non-game contexts in order to engage users. On Foursquare, your earn points with each check-in and as you earn points you move up the leaderboard. But there are many other reasons to "check-in":

• To brag about your whereabouts
• To share tips on what to eat, buy, or do
• To find friends nearby
• To find deals
• And to win a mayorship, badge, or some other recognition 

The latter -- the friendly competition -- is at the core of gamification. And this gamified experience is still a  major draw to Foursquare over Facebook's check-in features. But this competitive spirit can be quickly spoiled by the employees of a store or restaurant. It's because of this that employees should not be allowed to check-in at their stores & restaurants. This social network interaction should be reserved for customers. Otherwise, there's no point.

Mayorships and gamification can be a powerful promotional force leading to more customers and higher sales. But not if you allow your employees to check-in, because a customer will never be able steal that mayorship from an employee. They're simply not on-location as much.

Now, what if customers could only check-in at checkout? What if Foursquare partnered with Square to become FourSquared? Or Facebook furthered its partnership with Apple to realize an NFC iPhone's full potential? Now you not only have to be in the store but you have to buy something to be able to check-in! Imagine all the benefits for customers and businesses.

Here are 7 advantages of gamifying the check-out processes with check-in apps:

• Improved customer loyalty programs with 1-click signups and no need for physical cards
• A value-add for customers to visit brick-and-mortar stores instead of shopping online
• Social network integration delivering peer reviews to customers based off product ownership
• Social network integration delivering more fans/followers of business pages
• One-click, self-checkout payment options for customers without employee interaction or checkout lines
• Paperless receipt systems tied to email and in-app inboxes
• And more targeted marketing for businesses based on customer purchases AND interests

An innovative partnership like this could revolutionize the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. But could it save it from an inevitable death-by-dot-com?

Top 10 ways to connect with millennials

If you're looking for a way to connect with the millennial generation, social networks are the best source to find those "kids" and build meaningful relationships with them. Try interacting with them via:

1. Facebook: With over 1 billion active users and more than 42 million pages with 10 or more likes, Facebook is the perfect place to connect with MBAs. Your company/product/school should have its own Facebook page that millennials can “like” and get daily updates on relevant news and events. By creating an official Facebook page, you can easily reach a self-selected audience who is actually interested in what you have to say.
2. Twitter: Twitter is a proven marketing tool and an effective outreach device. Many companies have a presence on Twitter. And some even have multiple accounts, including an entire product-oriented presence. Millennials are already using Twitter to communicate, research, promote and personally brand themselves – you should be doing the same for your company's/product's brand. Take a moment each day to tweet about something relevant or interesting.
3. LinkedIn: Where Facebook is considered a more personal space, LinkedIn has been defined as the “professional” social network. Use LinkedIn to connect with working millennials with money to spend. You should not only create a LinkedIn group for your company's employees, but also create subgroups for each product's users/experts to better connect (and stay connected) with your customers.
4. Google+: Google+ is the fastest growing social network ever, already with 90+ million users. And it’s critical to Google’s new “social” search algorithm. Create an customer-facing company “page” now and start adding your customers, users and fans to your “circles” (Google+ pages are different than personal accounts in that you can’t add people to your circles until they’ve added you). Once your Google+ page has been created you can advertise it to millennials just like any other social network.
5. YouTube / Vimeo: Videos are 53 times more likely to appear in search than text webpages. So if you are trying to connect with millennials organically through search, YouTube might just the best way to do so. Need content ideas? Try helpful tips from users or how-to videos for your products.
6. Blogs: You are probably already blogging, but if not, you should be! A blog is the easiest way to get information on the internet for your audiences to find. And comments on blogs are the easiest way to start a conversation with those audiences. If you don’t already have a blog built into your website, you can start one for free on Blogger or Wordpress. Then start posting any news or commentary that you think millennials might find interesting, relevant and timely. Your company's blog is also a great way to promote your new products to millennials doing research on the web.
7. Instagram: This photo sharing network is an easy way to post a picture worth 1,000 words. Find the most artistic person with an iPhone or Droid in your office and create an account on Instagram for your company. Post pictures of goings-on around the office, product details, or people using your products to pique interest in your company. Instagram is the new Flickr.
8. Pinterest: Pinterest is the hot new social network, and it’s dominated by women. Create some boards around “Women", “Fashion”, and “Style” to connect with the female millennials.
9. Foursquare: Make sure your company is available for “Check Ins” on Foursquare. It’s an easy way for millennials to advertise for you by showing their friends where they've been and leaving tips for future visitors/customers.
10. Tumblr: It’s the new way to blog. The best Tumblr blogs have a niche theme, so pick something simple like “Our Customers” or the newest internet meme and twist it to something your customers might find interesting or funny.

For more information on connecting with the millennial generation, please contact me.

Just "new" it

Please don't change it. Just "new" it.

Everybody hates change (Facebook's user interface updates, Google's social search, McDonalds' new fry oil, Star Wars special edition) but everyone loves something "new" (Apple's new iPad, Wendy's fries with sea salt, Nolan's The Dark Knight). It's the key to product updates.

But, honestly, there isn't any difference between a new product and a changed product. It's all in the packaging. Not the physical packaging, but the marketing.

The way a product is branded by marketing will inevitably create the consumer perception of the product's update. If marketing can create a "new" perception of the product, like the always brilliant product marketers at Apple did with the iPad 3, consumers will buy in. It's much more difficult to sell a product that's just "changed."

Just think about it. What are some other "new" products that were well-received by consumers, and some poorly-received product changes? Add them in the comments below or Tweet them at me @RyanPratt.

Rebranding in the 2010s: The Netflix slash Qwikster debacle

I've experienced this myself -- when a company I worked for briefly split in two and became one company with two websites. It was a difficult decision, and even more difficult transition.

There are the obvious complications that come with re-branding a business: new logos, new colors, new business cards, new letterheads, etc. These are the same problems transitioning companies have dealt with for years. But today there is so much more to worry about.

Today, rebranding businesses have to consider the transitions in the digital world as well. 

There's website domains. Is your URL available? Or how much is it going to cost you to purchase it from that squatter?

There are SEO effects. Sure 401 redirects will combat a complete domain swap. But all the work you've done creating inbound links from other highly-ranked websites; all the research on META tags, keywords, and descriptions; and any positive effects you've received from social search (SPYW) is as worthless as having a Facebook page with zero "likes."

Which leads me to the biggest issue -- and the one that eventually put an end to Netflix's rebranding fiasco -- is the question of what to do if your handle isn't available on the social networks?

Just as there are domain squatters for URLs, there are Twitter and Facebook handle squatters. As soon as it becomes apparent any social network is the "next big thing" and opens itself up to business and companies, users sign up and sit on social network names. Heck, I'm not even squatting and I have 27 Twitter accounts and 13 Facebook usernames. But unlike URLs which have democratic companies monitoring and maintaing these domains (i.e. GoDaddy), social network handles are a ruleless wild west for name-squatting cowboys (and cowgirls).

The moment Netflix announced they were rebranding their DVD mailing service as Qwikster people jumped on net and blew up search engines with the term "Qwikster" -- which inevitably lead them to find a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking Elmo who already owned the Twitter account for @Qwikster. It was major flaw in C-suite's plan for Netflix. Something you'd expect a company as successful as Netflix to have thought of. But they didn't. And they soon lost the quickdraw gun fight with Jason Castillo (aka @Qwikster) who's since cleaned up is act a bit -- changing his profile picture to a crest and washing his mouth out with soap -- but not before single-handedly putting an end (and some bad PR) to the Netflix / Qwikster debacle. And...

Friend Me, Like Me, and Subscribe to Me

Facebook has rolled out yet another update, and this time it is directly taking on Twitter in an even more obvious and confrontational way. You can now "follow" on Facebook.

One of the best things about Twitter was that you could "follow" people without having to "friend" them. It was a simple yet fantastic feature that Facebook couldn't offer. In order to "follow" someones status updates, likes, and shares on Facebook you had let them follow yours. And typically, this wasn't an equally interesting two-way street. Typically, one person is a better "Facebooker" than the other. And typically, one person ends up regretting the "friendship."

But now, you can "subscribe" to people on Facebook.

With Facebook subscriptions you can quickly and easily follow someone's Facebook updates with the click of a button. There's no accepting, no de-friending, and no two-way connections. It even allows celebrities to open up their personal Facebook profiles to the public.

But Facebook didn't stop there, they also quite quickly and reactively stomped out the one flame Google+ had to offer -- circles. Google+'s circles allowed you to create lists of people to share specific content with, thereby sparing your other connections from being "spammed" with content they didn't care about. With the new Facebook subscriptions and revamped lists feature, you can now not only post to your "friends," you can also post to public, family, close friends, or any self-defined list of people you'd like.

Facebook's latest update has changed everything, and firmly protected itself against its competitors. It was a brilliant move to secure its foothold as the present and future king of the social networks. It has improved every person's experience on Facebook -- from power user to stalking Grandma. Because now, you can not only friend me and like me, you can now also subscribe to me.

14 things I hate about Facebook

I hate when my Facebook "friends"...

1. Express their undying love for their best significant other in the whole world (when in reality, he or she most likely is not)
2. Tell the world how awesome their life is (not b/c it really is, but b/c they are trying to convince not only the world, but more-so themselves of it)
3. Post pictures of everything they eat (unless it's green eggs and ham we don't care)
4. Tell the world their monotonous everyday goings-on (we do not need to know your bedtime)
5. Search for sympathy comments b/c they are ill or sad (it's obvious and pitiful)
6. Post pictures of themselves taken by themselves with their shirts off (you're not that hot)
7. Have RIP status updates in grieving for someone who recently passed away (this is a personal experience that shouldn't be shared with the world)
8. Acting like they are smarter than they actually are (using a thesaurus doesn't make you any cooler)
9. Entire albums dedicated to babies and dogs (after 4 or 5 pics of a dog or baby laying there doing nothing we get the point... you think its adorable - even though the rest of the world probably does not)
10. Profile pics with other people in frame that are better looking than the actual person (you can't trick random people into thinking you are the other person very long - if anything you should post pics of you standing next to the fattest ugliest friend you have)
11. Profile pics of them with their significant other (thank god for the upcoming "Cover" feature)
12. Profile pics of celebs and athletes (YOUR profile pic is supposed to be a picture of YOU)
13. Profile pics that don't actually look like them (i.e. the best picture they ever had - could be from ten years ago)
14. Random people that act like they are your best friends (thank god for the new "Subscribe" feature)

The personification of the marketer

It has become glaringly obvious over the past few months that people do NOT want to be marketed to. They hate it. They call it SPAM.

SPAM is defined by Wikipedia as "the use of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately." And those who create this electronic spam is defined as a spammer.

But today, consumers define any advertisement that doesn't openly declare itself as such as spam. And the same goes for marketers and advertisers. Just think of all the examples of people angered and upset over marketing, advertising, and hidden promotions lately:

• Tweets from people you don't follow on Twitter
• changes to Facebook to improve profitability
• ads on Hulu despite it being a paid service
• ads in iOS apps on your iPhone and iPad
• Season 5 of Mad Men cutting two minutes out of each episode to make room for more commercials

So what CAN marketers do to promote their products and services? The answer lies in interesting and relevant content.

Marketers must now be thought leaders, advocates, and gurus in their industry. They must have interesting insights. They must be informative and enlightening. If marketers want to be persuasive, they must be people -- not products.

Liar, Liar, Posts on Fire

I'm just saying what you wish you could: she's not really a ________ and he didn't actually ________. In order to ________  you have to ________ and you did not.

So why do people insist on lying on social networks?

It starts with the fact that everyone lies. In 1996, a UVA psychologist published a landmark study that revealed an ugly truth about humans: Everyone lies. In fact, on average, people lie at least twice every day.

Today, it's even easier to lie. With communication methods becoming less face-to-face and more pre-meditated, a lie can be carefully crafted and revised before unveiling it to the world. Plus you don't have to worry about being caught scratching your ear, crossing your arms, or looking up and to the right.

Typically, people lie to attract the opposite sex. "I'm a doctor." "Just got back from France." "Just sold my Mercedes." And a social network is just a beefed up Match.com dating profile. So why would you expect any different? Have you seen the "documentary" Catfish?

Lying in Facebook's Bed

A recent study has revealed that Facebook is the cause of 20% of all divorces. Shocking? Not really. Think about all the "friends" you have on Facebook. Think about your communication habits. Then compare those to your real-life contacts and communications. The number of online temptations is staggering -- and much more prevalent than real-life temptations. Plus with personal passwords, privacy settings, and private messaging, it's easier than ever to hide your "relationships" from your significant other.

Currently, less than half (44%) of the people on Facebook are listed as being in some sort of committed relationship. And only 29% are listed as "married." The actual U.S. census numbers report a much higher percentage of the population (49.7%) is married. And it's not like Facebook isn't a significant sample size (51% of Americans are on Facebook = 150 million).

So what does that mean? Americans are lying in Facebook's bed.

Lying on Dr. Twitter's Couch

At a quick glance there are currently 7 tweets out of my 50 most recent that is either a pity-begging complaint about one's life or hidden stab at an unnamed "friend."

Why is it people insist on lying on this social couch and spilling their guts to an audience of strangers who don't care? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Just as we don't care what you ate for dinner or what time you woke up this morning, we also do not care that your boyfriend is a douche and your girlfriend is a slut. I know you are reaching for someone or something to pity you. I understand you're upset and lonely. But pick up the phone and call your family or text your friend.

And posting something for the sole purpose of making your ex jealous is awfully immature. Not there's anything wrong with that.

#hi @friend

Some people seem to think Facebook walls and Twitter mentions are a new way to have a conversation with friends and family. But social networks are not a communication tool to replace text messaging, emails and phone calls. And it certainly isn't an instant messenger. So please stop publicly replying! If you want to say "hi" to your friend, text them. If you think the world cares about your drunken memories from last night or needs to know your plans for the party tonight, they don't. And please stop the social network Happy Birthday wishes! If you don't have their phone number to text or call them, they probably won't care if you forgot their birthday.

I Don't Care What Joe Ate for Dinner and When Jessica Went to Bed

The typical argument by those few people who still haven't joined Facebook or Twitter is just that: "I don't care what Joe ate for dinner and when Jessica went to bed." And they're right! But that also just proves they're nay-sayers. Because just as there are some socially inept people on the web, as there are in real life, most people now understand that social networks are not a daily diary of your doings. We can blame Twitter for that - always asking "what are you doing?" when it should ask "what are you thinking?". But even better than that would be "what are you thinking that the world should know?". The world does not want to know that you ate a ham sandwich for lunch. And they certainly don't need to see a picture of it. But they might want to know that you had the best black forest ham and swiss on this side of the Rhine at cheap local deli named Brother's Grimm just off Main Street downtown. That is what social networking is for. That is it's purpose. And that is the reason those nay-sayers should join.

Google + Does Not Equal Twitter + Facebook

So Google+ is the next big thing in social networking. But then again, so was Google Wave, and Google Latitude, and Google Buzz. So will Google+ actually catch on? The numbers unequivocally scream YES! It only took 1 month to become the fastest social network to reach 25 million users (it took Facebook about three years to attract 25 million visitors, while Twitter took just over 30 months). So jump on the bandwagon and grab your seat, but you can probably get off at the first stop and head home to Facebook or Twitter for a few months until you'll need another ride. Because right now, it's basically marketers and men that are the power users, and until your actual friends and family arrive, it's just a place to get spammed.

Law & Order: SNU

I was recently tasked to perform a social network investigation to "find anything damaging on a few litigants in the world of cyberspace." It was an interesting opportunity that I found myself whole-heartedly interested in. But with my limited legal knowledge (watching "Law & Order: SVU") I quickly realized that I could really only advise my client on the social media aspect of the investigation.

After some initial research, combined with my previous experience on the web and social networks, I believe it would be extremely difficult to find anything of legal significance on any of these "subjects" online. Here's why:

There are currently over 750 million registered users on Facebook. And more than 200 million on Twitter. And on each of those there are multiple people with the same user-defined name. Even if you know the current location of each person of interest, it still only narrows the field to a user-defined list of people in or around the area. There are some lat/long GPS check-in social networks, but they are far less popular. Foursquare has 10 million registered users.

Then if you actually find the correct person, it would be very rare that you find anything of substance to use in a legal case of this matter (i.e. someone tweeting: "I am stealing a bunch of money from my doctor LOL"). Occasionally, with some criminal lawsuits (i.e. the recent riots and looting in London) people are dumb enough to post something that could be used as evidence in a court of law (i.e. looters in London posting pictures of what they stole). But in these cases the best you might do is find a person to be greedy (i.e. "just bought a new Porsche I can't afford"), with poor ethical standards ("bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks"), or maybe, if you are lucky, admitting to use of drugs ("I am so stoned right now"). Only a complete moron would tweet, post, or check-in to a place and state that they are doing something illegal - but then again there were those London looters?

25 Random Things about ListAfterList.com

Hey Listers,

In case you didn’t know, Facebook is the cause of the two latest social networking crazes: a list of 25 random things about oneself, and tagging an emoticon poster (aka a picture of smiley faces with different emotions) with the appropriate Facebook friend. I will avoid mentioning the latter again, in order to not give it any more legs than its already grown.

The other craze has already grown legs, legs like the giant spider monster in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Everyone was doing it. Every major news source had stories about it. Imagine Beanie Baby Teletubbies that laugh when you tickle its stomach. Yeh, that big. But fortunately that monster’s been slain.

Until now! I’m bringing it back, baby! One last time. Like a Barbara Streisand comeback tour. Here are the 25 random things you didn’t know about ListAfterList.com:

1. LAL is slang for ListAfterList.com – not to be confused with the L.A. Lakers or Indo-Iranian word meaning “red friend queen”
   
2. You can follow LAL on Twitter and get all the new lists dumped into your feed with all of Ashton Kutcher, William Shatner and the REAL Shaq’s updates
   
3. LAL eats Snickers bars with a fork
   
4. LAL gave into the peer pressure and got on Facebook
   
5. LAL is trying to find a better job just like all of you on LinkedIn
   
6. LAL is the #1 Google search result for terms like “celebrity gamertags” and “types of ecosystems” as well as “other words for penis”, “famous sidekicks” and “23 flavors of dr. pepper”
   
7. LAL was fat in high school
   
8. LAL now has over 16,000 lists
   
9. LAL has been pooped on by a flying flamingo
   
10. LAL now has over 2,000 listers who have created at least 1 list
    
11. LAL was born on February 26, 2007 – sharing birthdays with Michael Bolton, Levi Strauss, Johnny Cash and Marshall Faulk and same day as the final radio broadcast of Dragnet
    
12. LAL has had over 2 million visitors since its birthday
    
13. LAL has 6 toes
    
14. LAL has hundreds of lists across 29 different categories
    
15. LAL drinks two glasses of Treleaven Riesling every night before bed
    
16. The most popular list of all-time on LAL is Famous Celebrity XBOX Gamertags
    
17. LAL once had a message show up in its Alpha Bits cereal – it said “Ooooooo”
    
18. The sports category is the most popular category, followed closely by movies and personalities
    
19. “Worst” is the most popular search term on LAL
    
20. LAL cried at the end of the “Rudy” when he finally runs out onto the field
    
21. If LAL were on death row and had to choose one final meal to eat, it would definitely be Chipotle
    
22. LAL has become THE place to create and share “bucket lists” with the rest of the world
    
23. LAL hates it when people nay-say something before trying it
    
24. On LAL you can edit, re-order and add to any wiki list someone else has created
    
25. LAL is being a complete hypocrite
    

Lists Hidden in This Newsletter
Top 10 Best Legs
Are Movies with 8 or More Oscars the Best Films Ever?
Top 10 Most Valuable Beanie Babies
Top 10 Movie Monsters from NYC
Top 10 Biggest Comeback Tours Ever
Teams with Most NBA Championships
Best SCI-FI Actors and Actresses
Top 50 Celebrities on Twitter
Favorite Seinfeld Moments
Tips to Burn More Fat Faster
Best Toilet Paper
February 26 Happy Birthdays!
Day in History: February 26
Top 20 Cayuga Lake Wineries & Vineyards
Famous Celebrity XBOX Gamertags
Peter Griffin's Jobs
Top Tearjerkers in Movie History
Things that People Nay-Say Before They Even Try It
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Top 10 Words of the Year (2007)


ListAfterList Updates and Reminders
Have you tried the new search on LAL powered by Google? It is much more effective. Now you can think of LAL as a place of reference, instead of just a website where you can find randomly cool stuff and interesting trivial lists. Find a bucket list of a die-hard sports fan, or the list of 5 NFL teams that haven’t played in the Super Bowl. Even try using LAL when you are looking for birthday gifts for someone (i.e. Top 10 Gifts for a Star Wars Fan).

If there is anything you would like to see on ListAfterList, let us know. And, if you have any friends who might enjoy ListAfterList, let us know that too.

Your Fellow Lister,
Ryan Pratt
Editor
www.ListAfterList.com