I have discovered Adam Singer, and I’m glad I did.  I like the way he thinks.  Self described as a PR/marketing director, blogger, electronic music producer, tech geek, Adam writes at TheFutureBuzz.com.

In 19 Reasons You Should Blog And Not Just Tweet,  Adam gives his thoughts of this subject which I found to ring true.  It certainly puts in perspective how much time and effort one should be devoting to which activities, Tweeting or Blogging?  Here’s what Adam has to say on the subject and his first 4 reasons:

“Here’s why you should make a blog your home base and consider Twitter an outpost:

1.  Blogging demonstrates true commitment and passion to your industry that you really can’t fake long-term.  Most won’t be able to sustain it over long periods of time with frequency, but those who do so are rewarded in spades and stand out from the crowd.

2.  Old articles are valuable and still read years later, given infinite life by the engines.  Old Tweets live in archive purgatory where a majority will never be seen again.

3.  Remember, you’re essentially contributing to someone else’s network on Twitter – certainly there are returns, but make no mistake they profit from your attention.  I know you might not have a problem with that because you gain something too, but it’s good to be conscious of that fact.

4.  A compelling link in a blog entry will be clicked; links in Twitter are noise that in aggregate make up signal, but the reality is links in your stream aren’t the same as a post with a compelling link.”

For more, read the whole post at 19 Reasons You Should Blog And Not Just Tweet.

And let me know what you think.  Tweet? Or Blog?  And what’s the right mix?

Tags: adam singer, blog, Online Communities, social networking, Twitter

I owe this to @charbrown from Twitter.  Still trying to learn and make my use of TweetDeck more effective. Charles said to group your favorite Tweeters…. ones who were consistently interesting and you might want to retweet….in one group or column on TweetDeck.  That allows you to clear out some of the noise and focus, for the most part, on only quality Tweets.

Problem was I didn’t know exactly how to do that.  @charbrown to the rescue!  Here’s what he direct messaged me, with admirable brevity:

“At the top of the screen you should see several buttons.  the 6th one from the right has a couple of heads, click that ….

continued) … and it will open up a window you can name your new group, it will also allow you to add selected followers

charles brown / charbrown”

Thanks, Charles.  It’s even easier than that, since a list of people you are following pops up and all you have to do is check their name and save.  Now you’ve also just saved yourself a lot of time sorting through tweets and made your whole Twitter experience more effective.  Thanks again, Charles

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David Spark (@dspark), a veteran tech journalist , founder of Spark Media Solutions, who blogs at The Spark Minute, has done a lot of research to see how people succeed at growing their social networks. He discovers the patterns and dishes the inside how to’s at 12 Inspiring Stories of Successful Social Networkers.  They are all interesting and helpful examples, but I particularly liked:

Seed Your Network

“For six months and with only 150 inactive members, the LinkToCharlotte LinkedIn group was languishing. LinkToCharlotte’s goal has always been to connect local businesses and people in the Charlotte, NC area. Founder Andrew Kaplan decided it was time to juice the membership of his group. In June 2008, he reached out to local influencers who could attract others to his local network.

Already having ties with professional sports teams, tourism, and political advisors, Kaplan sent out personal invites to their respective marketing departments to join the group. Quickly seeing the benefits of being part of Kaplan’s local industry network, they in turn sent invites from their lists to join his network as well. Today, LinkToCharlotte’s LinkedIn () group has grown to 2,000, plus it has expanded to include groups on the NING platform, Facebook (), and Twitter ().”

Take a look at how the LinkToCharlotte LinkedIn group , NING platform, Facebook (), and Twitter () all play off each other.  It’s a road map to creating and leveraging your social media assets.

Let me hear what you think if you’ve created or are creating something like this.

Tags: facebook, LinkedIn, Online Communities, Social media, Social network, Twitter

Yes, eventually, if you wait a bit, everything in the world…..at least in the tech world…..will be free and easy.  I have not been doing videocasts because it seemed to be a speed bump in my usual turbo charged tech day:  so many devices to configure and set up.  Not to mention figuring out some of them to start with.  But now, there appears to be a simple solution to the whole enchilada.  Just go to Procaster, poke around and see if you like what you see.  I certainly do.  Then download and start shooting and broadcasting.  Did I mention it’s free?

Tags: Mogulus Free, Online Communities, social networking, Twitter, Webcam

Just about no one on the Net is more of a guru than Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the World and very few are retweeted more.  Does he have a “secret sauce” for getting retweeted?  Well, yes, he says to write better shitake, but he also has some very specific advice and, once you read it, you’ll probably have a Eureka! moment like I did beause it all sounds so simple and self evident when Guy spells it out for you:

Forget imitation as the sincerest form of flattery—it’s as twentieth century as ripping off interfaces, songs, photos, and books. Today, the sincerest form of flattery is retweeting—the process of forwarding someone else’s tweet to your followers on Twitter. (I assume that you know about Twitter. If you don’t, take a minute and read this description at Answers.com.)

The reason that retweeting is so flattering is that every time people do it, they are putting their reputation on the line. If their followers don’t like the retweet, their reputation is reduced. So whenever someone retweets your tweet, they are expressing confidence that what you’ve tweeted is interesting and good. Thus, the best measure of someone’s quality as a Twitter user is not the number of followers but the amount of retweets.

Luckily, there are several sites that measure retweeting: Retweetist and Dan Zarrella’s Most Retweeted. (On both lists, ignore Garymccafrey because that’s a scheme to increase followers and nothing to do with quality retweeting.) These two lists provide a very good proxy for who’s worth following on Twitter. Do notice the Grand-Canyon size difference between these lists of people who are most retweeted and the people who have the most followers at TwitterCounter.

Hopefully I’ve convinced you that frequent retweets is a salient goal. The question becomes, “What do I need to do to get retweeted?” Allow me to digress. I was once asked at a blogging conference what my SEO strategy was (search engine optimization—that is, how to get Google to put your stuff higher in search results). I must have been “on” that day because I said, “Write good shiitake.” (Actually, I used a shorter word than “shiitake,” but I can’t post it here.) The answer to getting retweeted is just about the same: tweet good shiitake, and here’s how:

1. Answer the right question.. There are pockets of Twitter users who want to bond with small group of people and learn the answer to the original Twitter question: “What are you doing?” These are the the folks that enjoy tweets that say, “My cat just rolled over” and “The line at Starbucks is long.” The question you should answer if you want retweets is “What’s interesting?” for your group of followers. For example, the story that Taiwanese scientists bred glow-in-the-dark pigs is a lot more interesting than what your cat is doing and therefore a lot more likely to get retweeted.
2. Tweet about Twitter. Twitter users love to read about Twitter—anything about Twitter: how to use it better, lists of companies on Twitter, lists of CEOs on Twitter, what some analyst thinks of Twitter, what’s wrong with Twitter, list of Firefox plugins for Twitter, the top ten ugliest avatars—you name it. If you find a blog post or new item about Twitter, tweet it, and it will probably get retweeted.
3. Explain how to do something. Whether it’s roast a turkey, hot wire a car, take away an assailant’s gun, kiss a woman, polish silverware, or hack a road sign, the words “How to” and “The art of” are magical terms on Twitter and bound to get any tweet starting with them retweeted. This is because anything starting with these terms is likely to be educational. Power tip: use Lifehacks.alltop and GTD.alltop.
4. Break news. Ironically, you shouldn’t assume that everyone instantly knows that a plane landed in the Hudson just because you do. You could probably follow the Twitter newsbot of CNN (@cnnbrk), retweet its tweets, and get retweeted. Still, what’s the challenge in that? It would be better to find news from niche topics that you are passionate about whether is science (first frozen water found on Mars), fashion, psychology, pets, or politics. If in doubt, tweet it. Most tweets are noise, so yours will probably stand out.
5. Provide the bizarre. Sometimes it scares me, but tweets about bizarre stuff works. For example, could you resist reading and then retweeting a story about robbers who were caught after using women’s thong underwear to cover their faces? Believe it or not, stuff like this gets retweeted.
6. Provide links. There mere existence of a link in your tweet enhances its credibility. Essentially, it’s saying: “This isn’t something I made up or wish; I actually have a verifiable, outside source.” I realize that this is stretching the point, but links are pretty irresistible and get more so as you increase your credibility. The goal is that the link takes people to something that’s enlightening or entertaining, and they thank you by retweeting it. For example, the neuroscience of social conformity.

Finally, there are two tips from Dan Zarrella in “The Science of ReTweets” (this posting inspired me to write this in the first place). First, don’t hesitate to ask people to retweet your tweet. “Please” is a powerful word no matter who you are. Second, tweet from approximately 9:00 am to 2:00 pm Pacific time. My interpretation of Dan’s recommendation is that the West Coast is now up and at work and the East Coast is eating lunch at their desks so that they are checking Twitter.

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Tags: guykawasaki, how to get retweeted, how to increase twitter followers, Online Communities, Twitter

Pete Cashmore, CEO at Mashable, a social media company, and one of the most followed Tweeters on the Net at 319,528
Followers explains #followfriday at Mashable on Tumblr – How #FollowFriday and Hashtags Work. :

Since a lot of people are asking me about hashtags, and a Tweet isn’t enough space to explain, a few quick lines on how hashtags and #followfriday work:

1. Hashtags are used to identify a topic on Twitter. Add # to the front of a word to make it a topic. Example: #followfriday

2. #followfriday is a game in which people suggest who to follow on Twitter. It helps everyone find interesting Tweeps. You list the users you recommend following and add “#followfriday” so people can find your tweet. My suggestions: #followfriday @adamostrow @sharonfeder @jbruin @adamhirsch

3. You can find everyone’s #followfriday suggestions here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23followfriday

Hope that helps.

PS. Pete had nothing to do with the invention of #followfriday. You can thank @micah for that!

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Tags: FriendFeed, hashtag, Mashable, Online Communities, Social network, Tumblr, Twitter

We’re all about finding jobs or starting your own business in this rough economy.  If you want to be more focused in any of these endeavors, you might give Blellow a try.  Blellow is a niche  microblogging site to join groups, find projects, check the job board, and meetup with other Blellow members. Jennifer Van Grove describes it in Blellow: A Better Microblogging Tool for Freelancers and Web Workers.

• Name: Blellow

  Quick Pitch: Blellow is a social network allowing freelancers and professionals to collaborate, find work, and solve problems through a friendly, familiar micro-blog interface by answering the question: “What are you working on?”

  Genius Idea: One of the reasons that people are embracing Twitter with open arms is the quality of people and networking opportunities that arise from the 140 character community. With Twitter trending towards the mainstream, however, conversations are becoming more social, so freelancers using the popular microblog to find clients and projects might start to feel like a small fish in an expansive sea.

  For niche networking with a professional purpose and Twitter-like feel, we can now turn to Blellow, a more focused microblogging site to join groups, find projects, check the job board, and meetup with other Blellow members.

  

  The Twitter-similar site launched at SXSW and asks users, “What are you working on?” to foster professional conversations and create networking or project-related conversations. Members can update their status, seek advice when stuck on tasks, share files, give and receive kudos for peer-to-peer help, engage in threaded conversations, and join public or private or groups. Kudos are like credibility, so each time you receive kudos for a job well done, you’ll rank higher in Blellow search results, which could expose you to new clients and more work opportunities.

  

  Blellow also has three important features for freelancers looking for gigs: a job board, project listings, and a meetup page. The job board is a community-generated list of full-time and freelance jobs that Blellow users can peruse for work, while the projects page lists paid and pro bono deliverables which include the available budget for the project. Plus, if you’re looking for professional face time with other Blellow members, you can check out upcoming meetups or create your own.

  

  Blellow would be a killer app if it offered a better way to find friends. Currently the site limits users to inviting friends or searching for existing users, but it would be beneficial to see the TwitterTwitter reviews friends and email contacts shared in common with the Blellow user base. Blellow, however, does make it easy to self-identify yourself with groups based on your specialties or interests. Group conversations abound using the % + group name tag, and updates of that nature typically get quality replies. For $5/mo or $10/mo, Blellow users can create private groups with 1 gig and 10 gigs of space, respectively.

  Since Blellow is so new, its Achilles heel right now is the sparsity of people, jobs, and projects, but the site does serve freelancers, Web workers, and information seekers extremely well with the groups feature. So, Blellow’s survival will depend of whether we Twitterers will find enough value in creating and maintaining another microblogging profile.

  For a quick tutorial on the site, watch this video:

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That’s a tough one.  Facebook and Twitter both have a lot of juice, a lot of followers and a ton of good reasons to use them.  I’ve already looked at the similarities and huge difference between them: Twitter or Facebook?  Why you need both for different reasons.

But guru Paul Scoble analyze’s these differences from a business point of view, and picks Facebook as a winner for forming a more intimate relationship with the Facebook user.

Why Rob Diana is right: Twitter gets the hype while Facebook will get the gold:.

“I’m going to skip right down to the meat of what Scoble’s thoughts are:

The “publicness” of Twitter makes a TON of sense for someone like Ronn Owens who wants to reach a world-wide audience with very little work. Facebook makes less sense because it’s not only more work (there’s a lot more to do on Facebook than just write simple text messages from a cell phone) but it isn’t as public so it’s harder to get new followers.

But this is exactly why people tell me they use Facebook instead of Twitter. So, Facebook has the numbers (about 180 million for Facebook vs. about 10 million for Twitter). It is also why Rob Diana is right: people will put more intimate stuff, like having a baby, into Facebook rather than Twitter.

Only weirdos like me like sharing intimate stuff in a public forum and having conversations. Hint: for every weirdo like me, there are 1000 who are like my wife and only want to discuss that stuff with their “true friends.”

Which brings me back to Rob Diana’s point. It’s those intimate details that will bring advertising opportunities. “I’m having a baby shower in San Francisco at the Hyatt” is the type of thing normal people will share in Facebook with their friends but will never think of sharing in Twitter. Yet that’s the kind of information that a brand like the Hyatt needs to engage with you.

When I went to Las Vegas recently and said I was staying in the Luxor, someone got back to me at the Luxor on Twitter and said something like “let me know if I can help you, I can get you show tickets and make reservations for you.”

This kind of customer intimacy will be far more prevalent over on Facebook because WE are far more intimate there.

Rob is right, I wonder how Twitter is going to shift to get us to be more intimate with sharing the intimate details of our lives?

Oh, and I wonder how Facebook is going to keep us sharing the intimate details of our lives as it tries to add businesses to the social graph? The first time some business answers back a Facebooker like the Luxor did to me on Twitter they might get freaked out, so Facebook has to be careful here.

So, why would Facebook get any money from the Luxor? I can see a ton of ways. Can’t you?

Think of the Yellow Pages. Simple listings are free there (or were back when I advertised in the 1980s). But bigger ads that are more impressive cost thousands per month. Use that model on Facebook. Imagine a brand, like Luxor, just wants to say hi. That’s free. But how about post a link? That’ll be $4 please. And on and on.”

Agree?  Disagree?  Share your thoughts!  Come on….. you must all be on Facebook or Twitter or both.  Let us know what you think.

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Tags: facebook, Online Communities, social networks, Twitter

If you’re going to use Twitter….. and you should…. you might as well get the best apps to support you…. to make the process faster and more automated. Serious users consider Tweetdeck a must.  Also Hellotxt can be useful, since it updates from web, mobile, sms, email, 3rd party applications, API to more than 35 social network at the same time.

You can also take a look at the 21 most popular Twitter applications ranked by TechCrunch that produced these monthly traffic results:

1. Twitpic	1,236,828
2. Tweetdeck	285,864
3. Digsby	233,472
4. Twittercounter	212,200
5. Twitterfeed	149,812
6. Twitterholic	147,164
7. Twhirl	143,333
8. Twitturly	88,793
9. Twtpoll	74,154
10. Retweetist	60,051
11. Tweepler	51,304
12. Hellotxt	45,754
13. Twitdom	45,411
14. Tweetscan	44,463
15. Tweetburner	41,754
16. Tweetvisor	31,621
17. Twittervision	30,708
18. Twitterfall	29,592
19. Monitter	25,433
20. Twibs	17,168
21. Twistori	16,229
22. Twitbin	14,986

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Hopefully, like me, you are learning to use Twitter to enhance and increase your business.  Here’s some help getting there:

How to Attract and Influence People on Twitter — The Ultimate Twitter Resource , Derek Halpern great collection, broken into targeted pieces.

• Chapter 1: Twitter for Newbies
• Chapter 2: How to Use Twitter Effectively
• Chapter 3: How to Increase Your Twitter Followers
• Chapter 4: Why Twitter Helps Bloggers (and How they Can Use It)
• Chapter 5: The Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business
• Chapter 6: Here are the Best Twitter Marketing Resources… Period
• Chapter 7: Does Twitter Provide Any SEO Benefits?
• Chapter 8: Where Else Does Twitter Apply?
• Chapter 9: Twitter Case Studies: What are People and Companies Doing?
• Bonus Chapter: More Twitter Tips

Tags: marketing, Online Communities, Social network, Twitter