As the social web grows up, their is a lot of discussions on making money, but not a lot of specifics discussed. Better yet, few examples of companies innovating to increase sales in new ways. E-Commerce is nothing new to the web, but has the web gets social it to has to change.

I stumbled across a great example of a using wisdom of the crowds and the spirit of competition to promote and sell products. Amazon, an e-commerce retailer who has long been know for innovation and its willingness to try new things has started something new with its MP3 download service and its use of Twitter.  If you take a quick look at the image that leads into this post, you will see that Amazon MP3 has started using its Twitter feed differently. Until recent the service’s Twitter feed was only a listing of its daily music sales. This week that changed when they announced #bandbattle.

For #bandbattle Amazon picks two bands and then has followers tweet @ replies for the band they like the most. The band with the most replies will have its records put on sale on Thursday by Amazon.   I love this approach to using competition to determine special sales and the big upside is that with Twitter’s ability to spread word-of-mouth makes it a great promotion platform for the bands. I am not sure if Amazon is taking the loss on the sales, but if it is, it should work to partner with bands for the sales so it can reduce losses as it is providing marketing support.

Check out which band is getting the most votes.

Can this approach work for all companies? Probably not, but is can certainly extend well beyond the music business.

What do you think?

Winning in the emerging social economy is about taking action. It is not about having 10 great blog post ideas, instead it is about publishing one great post. The social web is kind of like Darwinism for hustle. Those who hustle and take action; win. Those who sit around and talk about their “great” ideas lose. Chris Brogan, isn’t the smartest person on the web, but many think so because he is disciplined enough to publish frequent content that is also thought provoking.

Being First Is Better Than Being Better
Individuals and companies need to get of the idea of “waiting for perfection” out of their thick skulls. The web is about revisions. Online, it is quick and cheap to edit or change something almost anything. Failing to realize this will only result in failure.

Take a look at Twitter. By traditional business standards it would have been a complete failure. Here is a company that doesn’t have a model to make money, a service which was down and unusable through much of its start up phase, and an inferior technology platform.  All of those things are true. Services like Pownce, Rejaw, and Identi.ca were all better services that were more stable.

So how did Twitter succeed? They were first. Now Twitter is the only word you hear on the TV and Pownce doens’t even exist. If you don’t think this applies to traditional businesses doing business online, then you are fooling yourself and your employees.

With Action Comes A Plan
If you have read this far then you must agree with me or must be a complete sadist. If social media is about action then every person or organization should then have an action plan right? What would that look like?

Keep it simple. I use a plan that works like this (though I use different numbers and have some added layers):

Each Day Do The Following:

• Publish 1 Blog Post or Video
• Leave 5 comments on relevant industry blogs
• Learn 1 new application
• Share 20 links that you think will help others
• Offer to help 1 person with a project
• Read one piece of in depth research or information that is longer than a blog post.

Sure it is a lot, but it works. This is only a mockup of a plan, I suggest you create one that works well for you.

Now tell me, how do you hustle?

I have talked about QR Codes a few times in the past, mainly because I see them as a great opportunity to bridge the physical and digital worlds.  For a quick refresher QR codes are two dimensional bar codes that can be printed on anything from a packing slip to a movie poster. These codes serve as a portal to some type of digital action: Web site, video, text message, and even a phone call.

Here is a video I did to help explain QR codes and to review one of the QR code readers available for the iPhone:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So if you have a QR code reader then they are pretty simple right? The problem is not everyone has a QR code reader and the bigger issue is that most people in the U.S. don’t know what QR codes are.  QR codes and other 2D bar codes are very popular outside of the U.S., especially in Japan. The opportunity with QR codes is that they are low cost. Most companies have Web sites that are used in their marketing efforts so they are already shelling out the cash to create them. The QR code can simply serve as a free method of extending that site into the physical world. Since QR codes are black and white they can easily be added to print materials with no additional cost. They are also free to create and the process only takes about a minute.

This sounds good right? It is, we are stuck with the problem that people don’t know what they are. So that leads me to my experiment.  I will be at South By South West Interactive next week and while I am there, I am going to conduct my own QR code experiment.

Watch this video to see what it is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I realized that I have created a super dorky t-shirt, but I am interested to see the response. I will report back after SXSW to let you all know what I found out.

One of the best things about the social web and the Internet in general is the access it provides to people’s reactions. Services like Twitter search make monitoring for real-time reactions and trends free and easy. Understanding trends helps each of us to better comment and provide feedback on trending issues.

In the video below I talk about two free services that deliver some powerful trend tracking information and comparison. Both Google Trends and Trendrr are free services, but they do take a few minutes of time investment to understand how they can become of use in your personal and professional life.  I do a quick walk through and discuss the applications of the two services here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

These two services as well as others can provide great stats and graphs that be included in blog posts and generate conversations on Twitter and FriendFeed.

Google is a factor in everything we do, regardless if we are happy about it or not. In a recent post marketing author and speaker Seth Godin writes about how Google never forgets, outlining how actions from the past can easily be uncovered in a quick Google search.  He is correct potential employers as well as business partners are using Google to research anyone that is trying to come into their world.

You have two options ignore that power of these actions or harness them to your benefit. I don’t talk much about personal branding and to be clear, I don’t think what I am about to discuss with you is personal branding, I think of it as smart personal inbound marketing.

Step 1: Who will be searching for you?
To best take advantage of Google’s power you should think first think about who will be searching for you. Ask yourself: What type of information do they want to see? You also need to ask yourself: What don’t they want to see? Once you have thought about the answers to those two questions, I recommend that you use that information when creating any user generated content online.

Step 2: Look at your SERP:
The page that displays the 10 results on Google when someone searches your name is called a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Have you looked at yours? These results are going to help people form opinions about you and could ultimately stop you from getting a job, a loan, and many other things.

When you look at your SERP Do you like what you see?

When I look at mine for “Kipp Bodnar” this is what I see:

Am I 100% happy with my SERP right now? No. But it is getting better. I want my blog to rank much higher and I have frew other sites that I am working to rank better to replace tipjoy and a few of the other less relevant sites. However, overall it is a pretty strong representation of me and it is all content that I am created. the best part is that nothing negative has appreaded in my SERP.

Step 3: Taking control of your digital footprint
To improve your personal SERP I recommend doing a couple of things. First you need to expand you digital footprint. Meaning you need to publish your own sites or become a member of other web services that are relevant to your life. For example, if you are a photographer, you should sign up for a variety of photo sharing services and use them to showcase your work.

The other main thing you need to do is to start tagging your content with your name. Regardless if it is a blog post or a photo on Flickr the more items you can tag with your name the better that service will rank in your personal SERP.

I am sure that SEO experts have much more advice and I encourage them to leave it in the comments, but the bottomline is that you need to be aware of your personal SERP and use it as an opportunity to tell your story.