Tag Archives: social networking

From The Mouth of A Guru: Why You Should Blog And Not Just Tweet

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?

It’s Not All About Twitter & Facebook: Other Fast Growing Social Sites

: Image via CrunchBase

It may seem like Facebook and Twitter are all we hear. But that’s just a piece of the huge social networking puzzle. Bebo seems to be one to watch: keep track of friends on other social sites in one place. I’m giving that a try and also putting together a social network using Ning as a platform… really incredibly simple and powerful. Here’s Adam Ostrow‘s take on the social scene in The Fastest Growing Social Sites:

Each month (and often more frequently than that) we take a look at trends in social networking, by the numbers. Recently, we’ve focused on Twitter’s astronomical growth – now up better than 2,500 percent in one year – and Facebook’s climb to become top social network over MySpace ().

However, this month there are a few other trends within the numbers – provided by Nielsen Online – that highlight a few other storylines within the social media space, as well as continue to put meat behind the trends we’ve been covering over the past few months.

Here are some notable developments from March:

Ning, which recently announced that more than one million social networks have been creating using its service, is currently the 2nd fastest growing social networking property. It’s traffic is up 283 percent year-over-year, and it now reaches a total of 5.6 million people in the US.

Bebo, which we recently reported saw a one month surge of nearly 50 percent on the heels of a redesign and AIM integration, has grown 148 percent in the past year, and now reaches more than 6.1 million people in the US.

This is significant because Bebo is known mostly for being big overseas, but insignificant in the US. The next few months will tell us if this was a one-time pop thanks to AIM integration or a continued trend thanks to some innovative things Bebo is doing with Socialthing.

LinkedIn () continues to be one of the quickest growing social sites and has more than doubled its size in the past year. It now reaches better than 15.8 million people in the US, ranking it 3rd in total size behind Facebook () and MySpace. It’s no doubt being buoyed by the weak economy and high unemployment as people turn to the site and their connections to find work.

As for “the big three,” the story remains much the same:

Twitter () is now growing at a mind-boggling 2,565 percent. In total, it reached more than 13 million people in the US during the month – and that’s just on its website (i.e. – not counting clients like TweetDeck () or Seesmic Desktop ()). Next month will likely see this total continue to swell, thanks to huge mainstream media events like Ashton Kutcher versus CNN and Oprah jumping onto Twitter.

Facebook continues to extend its lead over MySpace. In March, it saw 69.1 million visitors, versus 55.9 million for the News Corp-owned social networking site. In fact, MySpace was the only social networking site measured in the Nielsen survey that saw its traffic decline year-over-year.

So, while not much changed at the top of the social media landscape in March, there are certainly a few new storylines emerging that will be worth watching going forward. The full report – sorted by growth rate – is embedded below:

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alexsl

How To Videocast Anything Easily and Free

: Image via Wikipedia

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?

From The Mouth Of A Guru: Creating A Successful Conference Ecosystem

: Image via Wikipedia

Chris Brogan is one of the Net’s most popular bloggers. He maintains a warm and personal tone woven in with his business pitch as someone who teaches businesses and ordinary folks to use social media. He does this by way of his blogs and tweets, but from a money making stand point, mostly by his conferences, which are well attended by celebrity techs as well as ordinary Net denizens trying to learn to do a better job of social media. Since he succeeds at making money at it, I thought I ‘d share with you how Chris puts together a conference. I found particularly interesting Chris’s thoughts about “extending the conversation” to other platforms, as I can see the potential to really increase the impact by reaching larger numbers that way.

In any case, here’s how Chris puts it in The Art of Butts in Chairs | chrisbrogan.com.

I run a series of conferences. Logistically, they require the same things most conferences run on: great speakers, relevant exhibitors and sponsors, and eager attendees. The goal is to get the right speakers to draw the right attendees who might also be of interest to the exhibitors and sponsors. It’s a kind of ecosystem. It’s also not exactly the easiest business in the world. People don’t have a lot of budget to spend on attending events. Companies aren’t exactly sending them any more. It’s not all doom and gloom, but it does require more work than it used to, with regards to moving interested people from their office to my conference hall.

Some thoughts.

Be clear about the offer – I try hard to bring the best speakers for the specific content I’m trying to share with my audience. In my event, I’m looking to educate marketers, PR types, and companies representing brands on the theme of “From Strategy Into Action.”

Be open about the request – I try not to bury people in marketing for the event. I send out email marketing about once every two weeks (unless I have a technical accident). Beyond that, I’ll send a tweet every few days (currently around every 3rd day), and that’s about it. I try not to bury folks in advertising for it, but I’m very clear about my ask.

Be empowering – My goal with building events is to put the right people together in a room. I select my exhibitors and sponsors because I believe their tools are the right tools for some of the folks coming to the event. That’s on purpose. Bringing a guy like Chris Kieff from Ripple6 in contact with the kind of people who need what his company sells is exactly why we bother to do a face to face event. But just as much, it’s great to introduce someone who comes as an attendee to Tim O’Reilly or Charlene Li or any of the speakers we have coming. It’s important that we empower people to connect.

Extend the conversation – We’re looking at this right now. I’m selecting the right social platform to wrap around the event so that we can have conversations in and around the event, and not just at the event. The challenge is that no one really wants to join yet another social platform. They’re short term environments and don’t really live beyond the event walls very often. So, I’m looking for other ways to extend the conversation. Hash tags on each session as well as the event might help. Encouraging more flickr and Flip video usage will help. What else, do you think?

Empower Others to Reach Out – One thing I’ve yet to do for this event, but will ask soon, is I ask speakers to make sure to reach out to their constituent bases and invite people who might want to hear them speak. I also encourage exhibitors and sponsors to reach out to prospects. If it’s going to benefit someone to be at an event, I try to connect it all up. By giving speakers a few ways to reach out, I hope to bring the people who might want to gather a way to do so.

Outside of the Event – Sometimes, people can’t make an event for one reason or another. I think it’s always good to build something up outside the event. Some would argue that this might dig into the value of the event itself. Maybe. But I think more of the business networking happens during the event, in between the sessions, than at dinners and tweetups. Sometimes, it’s just nice to blend the location into the experience, and nice to connect with people who can’t make the event for whatever reason. Most events I attend these days have a non-related event like a Tweetup around them. I think it’s prudent.

What Else?

What else do you think face to face events need to have to be of value? What do you want from the events you pay to attend? Are you going to any conferences this year? What makes you choose which events to attend?

Photo credit, daveybot

6 Ways Twitter Can Work For You

Long ago, I used to wonder what was up with Twitter. I read in glossy magazines about vapid celebrities using Twitter to announce their comings and goings at glamorous water holes. Or the more mundane announcing they’d had a ham sandwich for lunch or gone shopping or their cat rolled over. Who, basically, cared. But, once I got into Twitter I found it addictive for several reasons. #1: Thought leaders in the Internet space were constantly telling me what they were thinking and what was the newest and the coolest. And #2. I didn’t need a ton of bricks to fall on my head to see what an incredibly powerful marketing tool Twitter could be.

So let me let GissiSim tell you how Twitter can work for you. He sets this out in 6 Ways how I let Twitter work for me.

1. Meeting professionals in my field.

Twitter is excellent for this. Even my mom who is an interior designer is meeting people in her profession. I have not found another network, not even Linked In, where I am meeting such a wide range of people who share my expertise. I’ve gotten help from my friends on twitter concerning my job, I’ve also helped a lot of people in my field, it’s a two way street. Best part is that I can really get to know these people. To get to know these people the first thing you need to do is find them. I use a range of different ways to find new people to follow. However, if you are looking for people who are professionals in your field, let me recommend Twellow, a kind of twitter yellow pages. Another really good place to go is Just Tweet It, basically a user directory which organizes them by profession.

How to get them to follow back.
This is a very good question, especially when you’re new. If you found someone that you want to build a relationship with, but they are not adding you right away. Watch their feed, respond to a question they have, Re Tweet a link that they post, or make other types of conversation. This makes the likelihood of them following you back huge. Don’t seem desperate though, don’t pester them. If they still don’t add you. They weren’t meant to be your friend!

2. Advertise your webpage

This is a no brainer. However, you really need to be careful how you do this. There are right and wrong ways of promoting your content on twitter. If all you do is talk about your articles, and your product. The likelihood of people taking anything you say seriously is very low. The likelihood of people actually following you is even less. You really need to build up a relationship with your followers. Find other interesting sites and share them with your followers. Write helpful information. Help people get their content further by re tweeting. I would personally say that you should only tweet about your own site 3-5 times a day. Anything more can be overkill. Of course this has a lot to do with how much you tweet. I would not recommend tweeting every single blog post you write, only your best.

You want people to be able to find your twitter account on your website. This way if people really like what you have to say on it, they can find you on twitter and add you. I find that this has been the best way to build my following in recent days.

3. Ask and you shall receive

I have found asking and being upfront about things to be the best policy. If I have a link that I really want people to re tweet, I ask people to please re tweet this link if they like it. This makes the likelihood of people sharing the link a lot greater. Some people might think that it’s not cool to ask for help, or whatever. However I find that when I see people asking for a re tweet, that I will actually go out of my way to re tweet their link for them.
Also ask for help if you need it. People on twitter are a very helpful bunch. I actually owe me passing a Microsoft certification to a twitter friend! Let twitter work for you, but remember that you have to work for twitter in return.

4. Having fun

A huge reason for my twittering is just to find fun things online. People are constantly tweeting about the best information they are finding online at any given moment. If you want to kick back and relax and have some fun, a very good way to do this is in Tweet Deck.

Find good content
At the bottom of every column you will see 5 icons. The one all the way at left is a filter button. Click it, now you will get a box to type in. To find every link that people have tweeted, simply type http:// into the box. This will show you all the great links people have found throughout the day for your enjoyment. However, if you really want to get the best of the best, type in RT @ into the search box. This will give you all the links that people found to be good enough to Re Tweet. The default search is for text. However you can also search for Username, Source, and Time Frame.

5. Plan a trip

I’m going to London in a week. I knew that I had a lot of twitter followers that lived in London, or other people that had been there. I actually tweeted that I was going there, and asked if people could suggest a hotel, place to stay, restaurants, things to do etc etc. I got a whole bunch of people giving me really good feedback. My trip probably would not have ended up being as well planned and thought out if it wasn’t for twitter.

6. Get a job

Here we come back to the reason for why finding and following people in your field is such a great idea. Once you have shown to be a good and reliable person on twitter. Shown that you know your stuff and can be trusted. Then the jobs actually find you. One thing that I’m very excited to try out is if I move back to the US from Iceland, to see if I’ll be able to get some business hookups in the areas that I’m going to, and having job interviews all lined up for when I arrive. I’m sure that I’ll be able to use twitter for this when the time comes.

Conclusion

Twitter is a hugely versatile tool. It can help you with anything you need in reality. You just need to be willing to spend the time and energy to let it work for you. I’ve only been active on twitter for a month, so I’m just scratching the surface of what Twitter can do for me. I’m also not using it in all the ways that I have already seen possible. Like promoting a product I’m developing by integrating it with twitter. It’s an exciting time we live in right now. Get involved!

Also see How to twitter like a PRO

If you like this comment, Tweet me.

WeFollow Twitter directory: Kevin Rose’s latest (news.cnet.com)
4 Twitter Tools for Business Research (thegetsmartblog.com)
10+ Best Twitter Tools You Better Be Aware Of (teabreak.pk)

From The Mouth Of The Guru: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers

: Image via CrunchBase

Kevin Rose, founder of social media site digg.com, touted as one of the most influential people on the web, has 272,706 followers on Twitter as of this moment. Blink. There are probably more now. I could go on and on about Kevin, but what’s important for you and me is he’s telling us how to do this thing we’re all trying to do : create a gigantic, mind-blowing, profit exploding following on Twitter. At least that’s what I’m trying to do and I bet at least some of you are too.

Kevin’s advice…….which I’m sure you can take to the bank….both literally and figuratively is set out in 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers. ( Follow the links for a full explanation of any terms you’re not familiar with.)

Explain to your followers what retweeting is and encourage them to retweet your links. Retweeting pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your profile. Track your retweets using retweetist.
Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to someone that doesn’t know you. Your bio is the only place you have to tell people who you are. Also, your bio is displayed on Twitter’s Suggested Users page. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you.
As @garyvee says, “link it up.” Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link it on your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, email signature, and everywhere else you live online. Also, check out the great feedburner-like badges from TwitterCounter for your blog.
Tweet about your passions in life and #hash tag them. Quality content coupled with an easy way to find it never fails. If others enjoy your content, they’ll add you. Learn more about #hash tagging here.
Bring your twitter account into the physical world. Every time I give a talk, speak on a panel, shoot a podcast, present slides, or hand out business cards, I figure out a way to broadcast or display my twitter account.
Take pictures. Pictures are heavily retweeted/spread around. This one from US Airways Flight 1549 has been viewed 350,000+ times. For mobile pics use iPhone apps such as Tweetie or Twitterific, both which support on the go uploading.
Start a contest. @jasoncalacanis offered a free macbook air if he reached the #1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason added thousands of followers…brilliant.
Follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they sent out and how they address their audiences.
Reply to/get involved in #hash tag memes. search.twitter.com lists the hot ‘trending topics. Look for the #hash topics and jump in on the conversation (see #4 for links to #hash instructions).
Track your results. TwitterCounter will show you how many new users you’re adding per day and Qwitter will email you when someone unfollows you after a tweet.

If you enjoy this content, let me first give due credit and tell you to be smart and add Kevin at twitter.com/kevinrose. I also hope you add me as well at twitter.com/gretchenglas, thank you.

Best Twitter Apps

: Image via CrunchBase

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

Twitter Client War: Twhirl vs. TweetDeck (scobleizer.com)
Blogs Who Covered the Twhirl Launch and How Your Social Software Desktop Looks Like (loiclemeur.com)

Twitter Captures WSJ And Mainstream Business

: Image by Getty Images via Daylife

In case you are asking yourself if your business or association is ready to start tweeting, you can stop asking.

Even the high, conservative guru of business, the Wall Street Journa,l is not only reporting on tweeting but is tweeting itself. http://twitter.com/WSJ

As WSJ.com as reported on the Twitter phenomenon infiltrating mainstream America:

“Doctors are using Twitter to update patients about office hours. Local groups such as the Los Angeles Fire Department are using it to share details about service calls with interested residents, occasionally with graphic descriptions of the victims’ conditions. And dozens of major companies, like computer maker Dell Inc., use Twitter to share deals and product news with people who sign up for the service.” They also report on a mobile Korean taco business, selling spicy Bar-b-que tacos getting 400 customers in customers at night by tweeting out their location.”

Is there anything Tweet can’t do? Perform brain surgery? Tweet out Hamlet in snippets?

Well, kidding aside, that still leaves plenty it can do, and what it can do for your business can be pretty amazing. For the basics, go to Using Twitter For Business

Tell us how you’re using Twitter, and we’ll start a dialogue of people or businesses with interesting Twitter uses.

How to use twitter for business (demandmetric.com)
Using Twitter for business: Engaging your customers online (publicrelationssydney.com.au)
Twitter Ramps Up Sales Team, Hiring from Yelp, YouTube (louisgray.com)

Twitter Or Facebook ? You Need Both For Different Reasons

: Image by luc legay via Flickr

Sudha Jamthe is a new technologies, product marketing and social media guru. She has written a very thorough and, I think, insightful analysis that sorts through what your goals and expectations are of both Twitter and Facebook. Turns out that though there are many similarities there are also some stark differences in what you have able to achieve through these different platforms. It’s well worth reading, particularly if your goal is to reach out to a specific market. Here’s an excerpt, but for the entire piece, go to Sudha’s article:
From the Eyes of an Enterpreneur: 15 Similarities between Twitter and Facebook and 5 HUGE differences and what it means for social media.

“My personal take on this is that we are at an early stage in the social media game and this competition is going to create new innovations that will shape the market to the next level. It is not about users on one social networking poking and sharing;we are entering a new level of interaction where realtime interaction, mobile, international and location awareness are going to allow for new ways of interaction for us as consumers and for businesses to engage with us .

Don’t underestimate the power of search

Facebook is closed, you cannot search any of your own feeds or status updates or comments or likes. You have a basic keyword search that allows one to find friends or applications.
Facebook allows google to crawl public profiles and lets google bring it more users.

Twitter absolutely shines here!

Summize was built using twitter api and later bought by twitter and became twitters powerful search tool. It also speaks to how open completely open the twitter API is, but that’s a different discussion!

Twitter search allows you to search to find conversation happening on any keywords and subscribe to it as a RSS feed. It is like having a Google SEM engine sending you customers to your RSS feed every 10 seconds.

This is getting marketers excited because now you have the power to watch your brand conversations, you can do live market research to find the pulse of products, brands and messaging.

Growth Patterns Tells the Real Story of Divergent Paths

Facebook is growing at 1 Million users/month with increased internal users.
Twitter has an organic growth with more companies joining it and experimenting with it.

Twitter is a community or has several communities built into it with its own set of rules and accepted behaviors.

Eg. Adding #tags, #Fridayfollow at end of tweets on Fridays to recommend new friends to follow etc.

So as new users join twitter they enrich their community and become part of it sooner than facebook where the user has to go through the learning curve for each user one user at a time.

So the twitter story is about faster engagement while facebook is about faster user acquisition.”

The Latest On Twitter: CEO Williams Talks (paidcontent.org)
Power Twitter Gets More Powerful with Latest Release (bhc3.wordpress.com)

How Obama Did It – Lessons for Bloggers and Webmasters

We’re just starting to learn how Obama did it. So many citizens and particularly youth, identify and

empathize with Obama and the vision he presented. But how did he persuade them to do that?

Many of us, each for our own reasons, want to pull back the curtain and see for ourselves what made up the engine that drove the Obama machine? Was it just the power of the vision? Unity in America? Turning the page to a fresh, new day? Was it the story of a man whose message perfectly married the mood of the country at the moment, as many pundits say is the driver of large election wins? Or was the win founded on extraordinary technical skills which were able to leverage the Net, reach out to where the people actually were and capture the attention of the country? What was the exact stagecraft ….or was it dreamcraft… or prowess in technology and communications that allowed Obama, a freshman senator to come came out of obscurity to capture this presidency with such commanding numbers?

Don Tapscott, best selling author of Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital offers up one answer: “Obama is the first president of the Internet age. His application of social media and his understanding of the Net generation brought him to power.”

Some part of this has apparently been dissected in a newly released book, Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign by Barry Libert, Rick Faulk

Obama’s leveraging of technology reveals lessons we on the Net, or in business of any kind, can certainly learn from. And, certainly to some extent, this has to be true. Obama’s teams’ mastery of the tools and viral energy of the Internet is what gained Obama 13 million email addresses, an army of volunteers, and small donors whom he could tap again and again to keep his coffers overflowing. Here are the basics which you also can download it here (PDF).

Certainly we would repurpose these last two statements for our own ends, replacing “campaign goals” with your organization or website goals, and, instead of online advocacy, integrating your own call to action into every element. With those two small changes Obama has created a roadmap that carry all of us on the Net out of obscurity and into the limelight. We just have to execute it as well as his campaign did.

Broadcast Anything

Chat & Promote

Everything Included

Record & Play

Broadcast Your Camera

Broadcast Your Screen

Broadcast Your Game

Easiest to Use

Highest Quality

Chat

Promote

Flash Based Player

Solid Desktop App

Mix in Realtime 2D/3D

100,000+ Viewers

What Else?

1. Meeting professionals in my field.

2. Advertise your webpage

3. Ask and you shall receive

4. Having fun

5. Plan a trip

6. Get a job

Conclusion

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