Weaving social media into your business marketing plan doesn’t have to be a complicated affair. The basic principles are simple and straight forward. In fact I’ll lay out the whole explanation for you right here. It’s yours for free to get you started with social media today.

Are you ready? Here you go!

Basic Truth

Before we get to the plan we need to understand this basic foundational principle.

People do business with you because they know you, like you, and trust you.

Unless all three things are in place you will have a tough time having a sustainable business. Miss any one element to that and, unless you are selling a commodity that people are buying purely on price, people will nearly always choose to buy from someone else.

Get In Front of People

In order for people to know who you are you have to get in front of them. Most all business people understand this, that’s the whole point of advertising. The more eyeballs that see an ad, the more valuable, and expensive it is.

Right now there are hundreds of millions of people on social media sites every day. This year social media sites passed pornography sites as the number 1 web traffic sites. As far as the web is concerned now, social media is the biggest traffic driver out there.

And the best part? We can get in front of those people without spending any money! All we have to do is join those communities, and engage them by becoming a valuable member.

Then people with know us and we’re 1/3 the way there.

Build an Audience

The second part of the equation is having people like us. That means we have to build an audience. We do that by being interesting.

For example, a quick scan through the top 50 most followed Twitter accounts on Twitterholic shows the most popular accounts are overwhelmingly celebrities, media companies, and big name brands, all with over a million followers.

Think about why celebrities command such big audiences. People find them interesting.

Now we may not be able to command nearly 4 million followers on Twitter like Ashton Kutcher does, but the more interesting we are, the larger an audience we’ll attract.

That means just droning on about our business, or “automating” the process won’t really help us in the long run. We may see some short term gain. But people see through that kind of thing fairly quickly. Instead be your interesting authentic self.

Interesting Builds an Audience.

That gets us two-thirds the way there. But there’s still one more piece…

Be Helpful

One the best ways to build trust is to be helpful. When you see people asking questions in your area of expertise give them the answer. Point them in the right direction. Volunteer info.

And you don’t have to point them back to your own website all the time either. Only point to your own site if it is the best resource you can think of to solve the problem. People generally remember folks who do nice things for them.

Over time people will begin to respect your expertise and see the value in what you have to offer. With consistency you build trust.

Eventually you’ll find that people start referring their friends to you as the one to talk to when they run into a problem you can solve. Those referrals will translate into increased business.

It all starts with being helpful to build trust.

In Video Form

If you’d rather see this in video form check out this one. It’s less than 3 minutes and is just an example of the great stuff you can get, for free, over on ChrisCree.TV. Did I mention they’re yours to watch for free?

Most people prefer video over text. The ratio is something like 90%. And that makes me a bit unusual since I’m in that other 10%.

Even though I prefer text, I get that most of you probably prefer video. So I thought, why not start making videos to help people get the info better?

Launching ChrisCree.TV

It seemed a better move to create a new “video only” site rather than confusing things here by mixing video & text posts. I’ve been working on it for the past several weeks to get everything ready. And today is the day the veil gets pulled back.

ChrisCree.TV is now live!

The site already has several videos and we’ll be focusing on New Media topics. We’ll be covering a range of topics from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogging and the search engines to the latest tools, as well as strategies and techniques for more effective business and marketing communication online.

Hopefully “New Media” will strike the right balance and allow enough variety to keep things interesting. For all of us.

There’s More!

As the late Billy Mays used to say, “But wait, there’s more!” (OK, so he probably said it in all caps.)

There is more juicy goodness to sink your teeth into over at ChrisCree.TV.

One of the cool things were doing over there is offering a free Weekly Digest email. Yes I said free. I’m a big fan of free so just had to give something of value away.

The Weekly Digest is a newsletter, but with a twist.

You see with just about every video I produce I am also creating a downloadable PDF document with extra info. Some of the things that the PDF’s have include:

• Summary of the video content (for you 10 percenters who prefer text)
• Links to sites and tools mentioned in the videos
• Extra info that couldn’t fit into the video
• Insider info

Once a week, usually on Sunday afternoon, I send out a the Weekly Digest email that will recap each video, provide links to the videos and the PDF downloads, AND recap posts from over here on SuccessCREEations too!

Not only that but I occasionally make special offers and discounts available only to subscribers.

Here’s the thing. The only way to access all that extra content is to subscribe via email. The PDF’s are a subscriber only benefit.

You can subscribe right here at SuccessCREEations. Simply fill out the form at the top of the page with your name and email.

Or better yet, head on over to ChrisCree.TV, check out a few videos, and sign up over there.

Enjoy!

Twitter is being talked about by everyone. You know when Oprah talks about something it’s gone mainstream. With over 19 million unique visits a month, up from only 4 million in December, Twitter is by far the fastest growing social media website right now.

If you’re struggling to see how to tap into all those people and all that growth to help grow your own business, here is something you need to check out.

Twitter Masters TeleSummit 2009

The Twitter Masters TeleSummit 2009 brings together 15 of the best social media marketing experts to share exactly how to tap into that market for your business.

We’re talking 15 hours of interviews with some incredibly sharp people who know their stuff when it comes to Twitter. People like Joel Comm, Dan Hollings, Carrie Wilkerson, Scott Stratten, Deborah Micek, Scott Tousignant, and the marketing team of Travis Miller & Jimmy Vee just to name a few.

There’s a broad spectrum of backgrounds and approaches to Twitter in this group. Follower counts for these folks range from just over 2,000 to in excess of 58,000 followers!

Did I mention they’ve invited Yours Truly to be one of the speakers too?

Sneak Peek at What You’ll Learn

Here is just a tiny taste of some of the topics the speakers will be covering in this landmark event.

• Connecting online and offline strategies quickly
• Simple techniques that increase your followers by being yourself
• Successfully creating buzz for your business and product promotions
• Create fanatical fans on Twitter through offline leads
• How Twitter can build strong relationships one tweet at a time
• Big mistakes social networkers make that cost you fans, followers, leads, and sales
• 4 Hands-Off Twitter tools to manage your time and get business done efficiently
• Building a word-of-mouth army for you on social media sites
• Attracting interested followers through retweetable (RT) material every day
• 12 Must-Have Tools when Using Twitter For Your Business
• Create a growing and active fan base in just a few weeks
• 2 simple ways to streamline your social media strategy
• Build an intentional Twitter space that gets you heard and respected by your followers

And here is what you’ll hear from me.

Becoming a Master Media Marketer
by Blogging and Micro-blogging (Twitter)

• 4 Top Reasons Bloggers NEED Twitter
• 9 simple trade secrets that get you noticed and attracting more subscribers
• Effective and proven Twitter techniques that gain influence without automation
• Why Twitter is the “Secret Weapon for Non-Profits”
• How to build presence on a shoestring budget

It is an amazing amount of content.

And here is the best part…

They’re Giving it away for FREE!!

That’s right. If you register for the event prior to the kick off on Monday you can listen to all 15 interviews absolutely FREE!

UPDATE: You can still listen to the remaining interviews for Free until the end of the week!

It doesn’t get much get much more affordable than free, I know.

But I’m sure you’ll want to get the mp3 recordings of the entire series. The folks running the Twitter TeleSummit are offering downloadable recordings of the entire series that you can listen to as many times as you want along with PDF transcripts of each interview to study at your leisure.

Be sure to order them when you register now so you can save 30% off the price. If you place your order before the end of the TeleSummit you can get all the recordings and all the PDF files for only $67.

After that the whole enchelada will still be available for the incredibly low price of $97.

Go Register Now and get your complete set of this incredibly valuable information so you can harness the power of Twitter to help your own business grow.

And Why You Really Don’t Want to Do It.

With the social media service Twitter beginning to be more widely adopted, less sophisticated marketers are joining the community. Some of these folks are opportunists of dubious ethics who are not looking to use the medium engage the community.

Instead these social media hucksters are simply looking to take advantage of Twitter’s simple format and established user base to push their weak marketing message out to a larger audience.

It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before the slimier and more obnoxious fringe of the internet marketing world saw Twitter as yet another target for their short sighted slash and burn, spammy approach to marketing.

Some of the worst offenders are actually selling “secret” techniques on how to quickly build a massive Twitter follower list. I’ll save you the money & tell you exactly how to do it. For free.

Why Share How to Game Twitter?

This whole gaming Twitter thing has become a hot button topic amongst long-time Twitter users. When new Twitter accounts are opened and get as many followers in a few weeks those of us who have been on Twitter for a couple years have, we tend to notice. Obviously we think about how and why they are doing it. The how is pretty simple. There could be several reasons why.

Jim Turner of One By One Media (Love the new OBOM Logo!) has been leading the charge on exposing the process of gaming Twitter. Last week he hosted one of the best shows I’ve ever listened to on BlogTalkRadio called, The Gaming of Twitter Exposed, where he laid out exactly what I’m sharing here. We’re encouraging folks to Hold Fast against the gaming.

I’ll tell you strait up that I don’t see anything illegal or particularly immoral about gaming Twitter to inflate your follower numbers. I just don’t think it’s smart.

You might ask, “Chris , if you think it’s such a bad idea, why would you guys share how to do it?” Well there are a couple reasons.

Credibility Issue

First and foremost I see a big credibility issue. The hucksters who are promoting this technique are really not adding any value to the Twitter community as a whole nor to the people who blindly follow their lead. Sure that they are amassing gobs of followers. And to the unsophisticated Twitter user, it is impressive.

While numbers can certainly be a significant factor, those who don’t know any better measure success and influence only by the numbers. Regardless of whether the new Twitter user is a solo entrepreneur or a large corporation it can be easy to assume that the number of Twitter followers equals credibility and influence.

The mistake in this line of reasoning comes from ignoring the quality of the followers. Some followers are more interested in hearing your message and engaging you in mutually beneficial business relationships than others. Having gobs of uninterested “followers” who aren’t listening to your message is worse than pointless, because it gives a false sense of accomplishment and progress.

There is nothing wrong with big numbers of followers. In fact I’m all for it. As long as they are the right followers. Having large numbers of enthusiastic followers is obviously a good thing. The trouble is, inflating your followers by gaming Twitter only succeeds in adding legions of disinterested non-listeners. Beyond bragging rights, there is no real value in it.

The mistaken assumption that numbers equals influence creates two issues from my perspective. 1). I have to repeatedly explain to prospective clients why the number of followers does not really indicate the influence of the account. And 2). Prospective clients may assume that I am less knoledgable because I have just over 3,000 followers after being on Twitter for over 2 years and Mr. Huckster got 16,000 followers in just two weeks.

Of course choosing not to do something is very different from not knowing how it’s done. So to save time explaining, I’m writing up a blog post that I can simply point to.

People Getting Ripped Off

The second issue involves people getting ripped off. People are charging anywhere from $6 to $200 for this same basic information.

Now I don’t begrudge people packaging information that is available for free, selling it in a more accessible format and making a profit. Consulting is very much like that at times.

What bothers me is that a lot of what is being offered only adds numbers without really extending the reach or influence of unsophisticated folks doing the buying. And in some cases, the “secret” techniques can even result in the Twitter account being suspended.

How does getting a reputation as a spammer or getting your account suspended help expand your brand or your business?

Do you really want to pay someone for a pass into the slimy end of the pool?

I’m here to help people. That means I work to assist them in expanding their influence on line so their business will earn more money.

People who are looking to make a quick buck from unsuspecting and unsophisticated customers and then disappear can give our profession a bad reputation so it’s in our best interest to expose the huckstery.

I know. I know. You want to know how they do it.

How to Game Twitter

First of all a disclaimer. This method has been tested on a dummy account and it works, to the tune of adding 6,000+ followers in the first week the account was created. However, if this approach is executed poorly it can result in your Twitter account being suspended. Your mileage may vary.

And again, I do not recommend doing this. While big Twitter follower numbers are good for your ego, having the right followers is much more valuable to your business no matter what size the list. I do not do this on my own Twitter account.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s how to game twitter and add thousands of followers every day:

Gaming Twitter

1. Get a Twitter account. Kind of obvious. But if you don’t have an account with Twitter, you can’t game their system.
2. Next, sign up for a service like Twollo (Twollow is another possibility. Not sure who copied whom with the idea here.)
3. Within their system set up “auto-follow” searches on basic keyword phrases like “social media”, “hey”, “twitter”, “marketing”, “dude”, “make money”, etc . Right now the best phrase to autofollow is “followfriday”.
4. Be sure to set the “maximum number of follows” to 500. This is important precaution to help prevent your account from being suspended.
5. Set up accounts at places like TweetLater (or TwitterKarma or FriendOrFollow or Tweeple Twak or SocialToo – If you’re really ambitious use all of ‘em!)
6. At least once a day go through and “unfollow” anyone who didn’t autofollow you or who hasn’t followed you back within a day or 2.
7. Many of these services will email you lists of those who have unfollowed you recently. Drop these followers as well to keep your follower/following numbers within “acceptable” twitter ratios

Bonus steps – accelerate gaming results!

1. Be sure you have autofollow on  for your own Twitter account (setting found in services from step 5 above)
2. Email lists of fellow gamers (with your Twitter account at the top of the list) so you’re sure to follow each other and show up on these lists.

Average growth rate using this method appears to be approximately 500-600 per day initially after startup day. As your followers grow it can quickly pass 1,000+ new followers per day if you manage it well.

If you are too lazy busy to actually send tweets on Twitter, then be sure to also set auto-tweets so that you show up in public time lines.

Maintain the number you are following within no more than about 500-1500 more than you have followers to minimize the chances of getting your Twitter account suspended. You can also set up an “@/reply summaries” email notification so that you can “interact” with anyone who @s you.

And there you have it. How to Game Twitter and Add Thousands of Followers Every Day. For free.

What are your thoughts? Is gaming Twitter a bad idea?

If you feel strongly on this issue, Tweet about it using the hashtags #gamingtwitter and #HoldFast to let your voice be heard.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to see the future of law enforcement vehicles. And it’s pretty cool.

No. It’s way beyond cool.

Carbon Motors E7 police car in Savannah.

The coolness was on display down at the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center in a public event that, well,  really wasn’t publicized all that well. I happened to hear about it from my good friends over at the Creative Coast, and being into cool stuff, went down to check it out.

Straight off the company executives made a big point about how no one would be allowed to touch the car, which seemed kind of strange to me. I mean granted they don’t want some doofus breaking the $5 million prototype that they are staking the future of their entire company on. But shouldn’t a police car be at least somewhat doofusproof?

Of course they then proceeded to parade any law enforcement personnel that wanted a closer look through a tour of the interior, pushing all the buttons and touching whatever the heck they wanted.

That part I get. All the police officers had guns. You walk up to my car with a gun and I’ll probably let you sit in the driver’s seat too. Touch whatever you want. And I’ll smile while you’re doing it, just like they did.

I briefly thought that perhaps I should have brought my Glock stuffed down the back of my shorts like Magnum used to do. Though somehow I don’t think that would have gone over so well in a room full of police officers.

I took my pictures from a distance. But I digress.

The Car

Carbon Motors E7 police car. Suicide doors are cool.

The car is a prototype built by Carbon Motors. They’re a start-up car manufacturer that is looking to build their E7, which has been especially designed for law enforcement from the ground up.

It makes sense when you think about it. Right now, to get a police car they start with a car that was built for the comfort of folks like you and me (and I do like my comforts) like a Crown Victoria, for example. Then they add everything from light bars to more powerful brakes and extra electronics as well as tear out things that aren’t needed. (Want to keep a suspect from opening the rear door during transport and escaping?  Ditch the door handle.)

Instead, Carbon Motors has started from the ground up with a specialty law enforcement vehicle. With the E7 there’s no need to pay for things like normal brakes that are only going to be removed and thrown away to make room for more powerful (and more expensive) brakes. The emergency lighting is built conformally into the body so that there isn’t extra drag (which means gives the E7 improved fuel economy) or holes drilled through the roof (reducing corrosion start points on the E7).

They’ve managed to engineer a car that beats most of the current popular police vehicles in both performance and in fuel efficiency. And they did it with a 300 horse power diesel engine.

High Tech

And when you get inside it gets even more cooler. Poor grammar I know, but it’s true.

Carbon Motors E7 police car. No door handle to let a perp escape through the suicide door.

First thing a geeky guy like me notices on the inside is the huge electronic display console on the dashboard and between the front seats. Imagine a laptop sized iPhone planted where your car stereo is and you begin to get the idea.

That touch screen display can pull up all kinds of policely information. For example, there are external cameras on the car that recognize license plates (we call them “tags” down here) and the car can pull up the info on the car associated with that plate (tag?) with just a touch.

But it gets better. Suppose the officer is in hot puruit of the vehicle. Looking away from his driving to find the spot on the screen to touch could be dangerous, right? Well the E7 has built in voice recognition commands so the officer can shout out police speak for “tell me the scoop on this car I’m chasing” and the car will pull up the info, without even needing a touch.

It gets even better, though. That’s the active mode. There’s also a passive mode for the plate/tag recognition. The car can be set to record all the tags it comes across while on patrol.

So say there’s a bank robbery and some sharp eyed bystander notes the registration of the get away car. And let’s further suppose that your city has a whole fleet of E7’s on the street. If any car spots that tag it can alert the officer, “Bank robbers dead ahead.”

Or maybe there’s an Amber Alert. If they know the registration of the vehicle involved in the abduction, police departments can go back through the patrol records of the cars looking for that tag. By piecing together where the E7’s were when they saw the suspect car the police can get a good idea where it is going and track down the suspect. Did I mention that the video is synced with GPS and map data? Think Google Street View, but much closer to real time.

Look out bad guys. Big Brother is going to be watching!

Marketing the E7

So besides totally maxing out the coolness scale, how does this have anything at all to do with SuccessCREEations?

Well I think the good folks at Carbon Motors can improve how they are getting the word out about their very practical purpose built (and very cool) law enforcement vehicle. Getting more exposure would likely attract more potential investors and potential orders at the same time.

Carbon Motors E7 police car in Savannah. But for how long?

From a brief conversation I had with one of the Carbon Motors executives, their entire focus has been in getting the vehicle in front of the law enforcement community. From the turn out at the room, which I’m guessing was at least 90% law enforcement, that part is working.

However there was very little attention paid to the event by the local media. The local paper had a 539 word write up and one of the local TV stations mentioned it on their web site with only 200 words!

Especially when you consider that Savannah is lobbying hard to entice Carbon Motors to locate their manufacturing plant here that complete lack of local press coverage is unbelievable. Even combining those two press mentions with the article in the Creative Coast that I mentioned at the top of this post and my blog post here more than doubles the coverage of the event in Savannah yesterday.

Hitting Social Media

If I had any influence with the folks at Carbon Motors, and since I don’t carry a side arm I really don’t, but if I did I would encourage them to add a social media component to their marketing efforts.

Winning over law enforcement is a good idea. But reaching the law enforcement community shouldn’t come at the cost of ignoring the general population. Voters can influence budgets and purchasing decisions to some extent. Politicians who make budget decisions are keen to keep their voting constituents happy.

And if a sizable portion of them are hollering that the current patrol cars aren’t as safe or cost effective and E7’s should be phased in, the politicians will respond accordingly.

They have a blog. Can you say boring?!

It’s obviously written by an executive. OK. That can be a good thing. Someone at the top of the company is interested in getting their message out.

The trouble is the blog is all about the different locations that are trying to become home to their manufacturing plant. Sure, that’s something that is incredibly important to the company. But no one else cares! That stuff isn’t going to attract any attention. At least not any positive attention.

Get someone to blog about the car!

Talk about it’s overwhelming coolness. Explain with enthusiasm how much better and safer and cost effective your purpose built car is over existing modified civilian vehicles.

Talk about the cool places the car is visiting on your tour. Savannah is a cool place. Tell people about it as a backdrop for your car. Show your car in their cities so that people can see your car as a critical part of their local police force.

The E7 oozes coolness, with the conforming light panels flashing, Television would eat it up. Get it on the local news programs. People would start talking about it.

Get on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Encourage people to participate. Did you know I was on Twitter telling folks about your car? From the Event. I posted photos of your car on Flickr.

Hire someone who loves cars to blog about your incredibly cool machine. But make sure he’s got a little doofus in him. The last thing you want is more boring blog posts.

The reason Top Gear is the single most watched TV program in the world is because the hosts are NOT car experts. In fact they often tread deep into doofus territory. They are sure are entertaining, though.

And that’s what your blog needs. They say “facts tell and stories sell”. Don’t let your blog get buried in boring facts.

Because the bottom line is, our police departments need your car. I’d like to see you build it here in Savannah. And hire an entertaining doofus to blog about it.

As long as we’re on a a Facebook roll this week, I thought I’d share this little video I found via Cherly Smith’s blog. Over and above the TOS issue, the video pretty much sums up the things I don’t like about Facebook.

Check it out. 25 Things I Hate About Facebook – What do you hate about Facebook?

Yesterday we talked about a change in the Facebook Terms Of Service that means Facebook owns your content – forever. And then at a talk I participated in for our local Small Business Chamber here in Savannah yesterday a couple of the panelists shared a little about how their being active on Facebook is leading to direct donations in support of their non-profits.

Facebook passes MySpace for unique visitors.

Facebook Now On Top

In spite of the new TOS changes Facebook is growing at a record pace. In fact, Facebook surpassed MySpace to take over the number 1 spot for social media traffic levels.

You can see by the Compete comparison at the right that Facebook has been growing traffic steadily since last spring while MySpace has been steady to slightly declining over the same period.

According to the published Facebook statistics they currently have over 170 million active user accounts with over 15 million users updating their statuses at least daily. (I’m not one of those 15 million.)

MySpace doesn’t have any published statistical data that I can find. In fact, the only “company” info they have on their website is this very lame “About Us” page which doesn’t say much of anything. Perhaps that is part of what contributes to the general perception that MySpace is for kids. If they don’t bother to even appear to take their business seriously, why should the rest of us?

Real Connections

Personally I’ve never done much of anything with MySpace for myself beyond opening a profile and poking around a fair amount so that I could have an understanding of the platform’s pros & cons when working with clients.

However I am fairly active on Facebook (in spite of my TOS concerns). I probably average checking in on my account about once a day to see what my friends are up to. I figure since so many others are active their it would be irresponsible of me not to. I’ve got over 300 friends there and have connected with folks that I haven’t been in contact with in years. Ok, in some cases it’s more like decades.

If you want to send me a friend request, here is my Facebook profile.

Congratulations to Facebook for becoming the number 1 social media site. It’s a place where we can all make real connections.

Update: This subject made the front page of Drudge yesterday. The article is here.

I’m big into social media, especially as a way to promote your business. Even so I’ve never been head over heels about Facebook as a means to promote business. I know many businesses out there who see great returns from their networking on on the site.

Facebook: All your profile belongs to us.

Facebook recently made a change to their Terms Of Service that make me a little less enthusiastic about the site.

Their Content, Not Mine

As long as I can remember Facebook has always had in their TOS that they can do whatever the heck they want with anything that gets posted to their site. However, until the change this month, if you ever closed your account that “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)” of theirs would expire.

Sure they’d probably still keep your stuff on their servers. But at least they wouldn’t have the rights to distribute it once you closed your account.

You see, their TOS used to have this at the end of the Licenses section:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

But I guess that Facebook decided they just couldn’t stand to ever part with any content you gave them (and probably thought was yours) so they  deleted those two sentances from their TOS.

Business Implications

Does this mean that Facebook is a bad idea for businesses? No. I think it still can be a great way to help get the word out about your business. Just understand that anything you post/upload to Facebook is not yours, it’s theirs.

What it does mean is that it is especially important to keep in mind the Law of Online Perpetuation:

Internet content will persist in direct relation to how embarrassing it is to you irregardless of your efforts to remove it, so don’t be stupid.

And in the case of Facebook, that could be forever.

There are more social media sites out there than you can count.

Social Networks can be very powerful. For those who know how to tap into them effectively, social media websites are are greatly accelerating businessesby expanding their reach and influence in a cost effective way.

There are even tons of options for those who want to create their own networking groups. If you want an all-in-one solution you might look at Ning or CollectiveX. To add social modules to an existing web site, KickApps is an option. Or if you just want some basic message board like communication you can look at a free Google Group or Yahoo Group.

But what if you want more control than any of those options offer?

Up to now your only option would be to spend a huge pile of cash hiring a crew of programmers to develop a custom solution. That’s out of reach of most small business owners.

Open Source to the Rescue

Leave it to the good folks at Automattic to come up with a solution. They are backing BuddyPress which builds on their WordPress MU (multi-user) platform to create full blown social media sites. For those who are familiar and comfortable working in the WPMU environment, BuddyPress is a very cost effective way to get a new niche social media site up and running relatively quickly.

And BuddyPress moved one step closer to being ready for prime time today with the release of Release Candidate 1, which means it is getting more stable and most of the bugs have been worked out of it.

This is really good news. Having an open source option for creating social media sites really opens the doors for organizations that can really benefit from providing a way for their communites to better connect.

I’ve been working with BuddyPress for a couple months now and I’m impressed. Something tells me once word gets out about this project we’re going to see BuddyPress sites all over the place.

Update: Here is a video intro to BuddyPress so you can see what all it can do.

Here at SuccessCREEations we are looking for ways to serve you better.

We have been getting quite a few inquiries lately from folks wondering if we have any kind of material they can purchase that will help them get started with blogging and social media.

Unfortunately we don’t. Yet.

However on the good news front we do have a wealth of information just waiting to be packaged up in a format that will make it easy for people to wade into the wonderful social media world.

That’s why we’re asking for your help.

We’ve put together a little 4 question survey. If you can spare about 3 minutes to go fill it out we’d be much obliged.

• Click Here to take survey

And thank you in advance for helping us help others learn more about social media.