No, I don’t use all of them [my list is here and the ones that I have automated are in color in the image below] — but I know they work with ifttt.com and I believe that automation is a big part of any efficient social media work flow. When you use a tool like ifttt.com, their engineers will keep track of all the connections for you and will even alert you via email if one of your recipes break! This product is so good, that I hope they offer an opportunity to pay for it soon…
As always, I recommend that you use exactly as many tools as you need and not a single one more…
Not familiar with ifttt.com? Watch this cute girl talk it up:
The answer is yes! While I normally advise clients, students and readers to “never use two tools were one will do” here is a case here is a case where using both is not only acceptable but desirable. Here’s why:
Tumblr is not as good at Search Engine Optimization [SEO] but it does allow JavaScript and iframes amongst other things
For whatever reason — technical or political – tumblr is available as a sharing option where WordPress.com is not so you can pick the best tool for the job
‘Curation’ via tumblr’s bookmarklet is a little easier than WordPress.com’s ‘Press This’…
They can be linked together from a technical perspective in a way that makes them appear to be one website to Google
They can both be scripted by ifttt.com
Both have great – but different – fans [which will give you more exposure]
You can have a unified WordPress/tumblr site for less that $20 per year
…and I’m sure there are some other reasons that I’ve overlooked!
Personally, I think Matt Cutts and the Google Webspam team have waaaay too much power [which means you’ll probably never see this post!]. Watch any videos of him speaking about how the Google Webspam team treats specific technical issues and I think you’ll see what I mean. Struggling with the issue of how to adjust client sites for the latest release of updates to the Google search engine, I came across this:
Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Google is working on a search ranking penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” or “overly SEO’ed.”
Matt Cutts said the new over optimization penalty will be introduced into the search results in the upcoming month or next few weeks. The purpose is to “level the playing field,” Cutts said. To give sites that have great content a better shot at ranking above sites that have content that is not as great but do a better job with SEO.
And, if you really want a scare do a search on the phrase “Google penalizes” and you’ll see that Matt and his team have mafia-like powers to ‘disappear’ people and websites!
Now, here’s my issue. Can anyone define for me exactly what constitutes ‘over-optimized’ – even Cutts skirts the issue because defining the term would be to reveal too much about the Google search algorithm would be my guess. The question I have is this, then: if most sites are ‘under-optimized’ then are sites that follow best practices ‘over-optimized’?
Click image to enlarge…
Take for example a website that uses a tool like RebelMouse or Twylah to capture their tweets and other social media shares as Search Engine Optimization [SEO] by adding those tools as a cname extension, or one that adds a blog to a static website using tumblr or WordPress using the same approach – are these sites ‘over-optimized’ because the webmaster is clever?
See what I mean? Search Engine Optimization [SEO] is a moving target and Google-style ‘leveling the field’ means content creators are shooting at a moving target in the dark. What do you think?
Google Reader is gone. No farewell message. No thank you for the support. In fact, I can see my feeds in Google Reader, I just can’t interact with them.
A pretty clear indication that Google really doesn’t give a Tinker’s Damn for customers – only their data and the dollars they can glean from it. This whole experience has had a profound impact on me from the first moment months ago when I first learned that Google was killing Google Reader for no good reason [and believe me, I’ve read them all over the past few months].
This stupid move, along with other ones like Windows 8 by Microsoft leave me wondering where I can place my trust. Oddly enough, I find myself rethinking open source products like Ubuntu, Firefox and Thunderbird. Who knows where that will lead?!
In the meantime, thank you Google Reader. Thanks to you, I consumed over a half a million articles in the past 6.5 years of use and I am what I am today because of what I learned from you. And, thank you feedly for stepping into the breach! I have loved you for over 4 years and used you alongside Google Reader. I’m glad you won the reader race!
Chatting with a new client in Australia yesterday, he asked the question should I care about Google+. The answer, of course, is an overwhelming yes! Here’s independent proof…
I know I’m opening myself up to a flame war here but I’m going to come right out and say it; the Mac is just not worth the money, especially if you do most of your work in the cloud.
There was a time when the Mac was demonstrably better at some tasks than others and that’s why is used it as my primary platform for 15 years. Heck, I even worked for Apple for 3 years I believed in the product and company so much!
These days though, in my work as an internet consultant, I use Mac, Windows AND Ubuntu and I am fluent in all three. I see no perceptible value in using Mac over the other two; in fact, it’s more the other way around. I like my 64bit Windows 7 machine but as Windows 8 [which appears to be another Vista to me] grabs more desktop real estate, I’m spending more and more time honing my Linux skills. After all, the Ubuntu operating system offers many of the benefits of a Linux or UNIX based operating system that looks good, but it uses inexpensive Windows hardware – the best of all possible worlds! Especially if all you’re doing is using the internet…
Right now, I think the best combination of hardware and software for business blogging is a Windows 7 computer although that may change soon. No matter what, however, you won’t find me paying for a new Mac – I don’t need the industrial design when I’m just looking at a monitor they’re just not worth the cost especially when Firefox, Chrome and Safari run on all of the major computing platforms! Questions? Feedback?
As the great philosopher Eric Clapton reminds us — it’s not the tools, but it in the way that you use them!
Still, for those who are curious, here is a dynamic list of social media tools that I use and recommend. Questions? Feedback? I’m also available for Personal Digital Coaching in how to use these tools ‘on purpose’ to prevent ‘random acts of social media’… Continue reading “It’s in the way that you use it…”→
First, denial. “No way, dude, that’s got to be a rumor.”
Then anger. “Don’t Be Evil my $%&! How could they do this to me?”
Bargaining. “Could a new version of Google Reader really save Digg?”
Depression. “I can haz no more LOLz.”
And finally, we come to acceptance. Yes, it’s true. Google Reader really is going away on July 1. So if you haven’t rustled up an alternative yet, it’s time.
If you’re a Google Reader user, obviously you need a new tool to read your subscriptions. We have a few thoughts for you on that.
But if you’re a content publisher, you’ll also need to make sure that your audience has a way to continue tuning in for everything you do.
Feel free to point your audience to this post, or you may want to craft a message of your own with more individualized suggestions for your audience’s needs. But be sure you send out a clear, specific call to action and keep those subscribers on board — no one wants to lose a big chunk of their audience just because a tool goes away.
Frankly, I went through all these stages a month or so ago and happily shifted my attention to feedly which I had used as an alternative to Google Reader since 2009. I’m happy to say that the folks at feedly have really shone in stepping up as the only logical choice to replace Google Reader…
It syncs flawlessly in the cloud
You can automate it with ifttt.com now
It has better features and is more eye appealing than Google Reader
Take a look;
So, Google Reader — good riddance! feedly rocks…
PS I do NOT agree with Simone that email is a replacement for Google Reader! Email should be preserved for ‘just in time’ information; send the just in case stuff to feedly!
Whether you’re actively posting or just browsing through your social streams, things move pretty fast. A post is often there one minute and gone the next. With hundreds of millions of status updates and tweets sent every day, finding them later is next to impossible. Here are 5 tools to help you hang on to those updates through archiving social media posts you’d like to save.
One of the most important things thinkers who aspire to thought leadership need to do is to effectively manage the information they need to nurture and nourish their expertise…
I firmly believe the single most important issue in social media is not whether or not it works to generate leads; rather, how can I add social media to my already overflowing plate and still get home for supper. I think the first place where people can find additional time in their day is by more effectively handling e-mail. Conversely, I think it’s pretty difficult to think about the idea of becoming a thought leader if you have thousands of unread e-mails in your inbox especially when e-mail can be so easy to manage…
The first of the holy trio is Gmail. There are a lot of tips and tricks that you can apply to Gmail however I don’t think any one of them is more important than this: using e-mail for what I called just-in-time information — information that affects relationships and revenue. Everything else belongs somewhere else! If your e-mail inbox doesn’t look like this then you’re going to have a hard time adding the extra work that you need to do to establish your thought leadership position…
Your inbox CAN look like this most of the time…
The second member of the holy trio is feedly. I use feedly to track the sites, searches and sources that nourish my expertise. Instead of chasing information around the Internet I make the things I need to know flow to me. Because feedly is completely cross platform down to the smart phone level I can use it in Mac, Windows or Ubuntu [I prefer Chrome as my primary browser and all three] or on an Android or iOS device. Feedly gives me the ability to create a virtual newspaper jammed with the best content in the world and it’s free! It also allows me to quickly share the good things I find…
Use feedly to create a virtual newspaper that nourishes your expertise…
Last but by no means least is Evernote. Evernote is a cloud-based app that is completely cross platform down to the smart phone level so I can access the things I save from anywhere…
Evernote is the best platform for saving and sharing great information…
These three tools together give me everything I need to effectively manage the information I need to continually refresh my expertise. In the following screen cast of show you some of my favorite tips for using all three:
These are just the first three tools in my workflow — you can find more ideas here. If you could use some help managing the information you need to stay on top your game please contact me and ask me about personal digital coaching…
If you were hoping against hope that Google was going to come to their senses and change their mind you were in denial. It’s time to wake up and smell the feedly coffee! Digg is moving too slowly to help people in transition so my official recommendation is to move to feedly…
Here’s how you can prepare for the ‘end of the Google Reader world’…
I am anti-war but pro-soldier: I don’t care how you feel about our government or the wars it wages; I do care however, about the good people who answered their nation’s call and took up arms to support our freedom. Recently I read this on the Huffington Post:
There are about 22 veteran suicides each day, a rate higher than previous estimates, based on a report released by the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this year. Many veterans who take their own lives are over 50, but the hundreds of thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan also struggle to adjust to civilian life while dealing with the mental and physical effects of war on top of a weak job market. Adam Legg, a 30-year-old Naval veteran, found that he couldn’t even get a job at McDonalds after returning from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009, according to ABC News. “When you feel like you can’t take care of your family, feed them, shelter them, it’s a very, very dark place. A feeling of uselessness that maybe they would be better off if you’re not around,” Legg told ABC. Some troops don’t make it home before taking their own lives. Military suicides reached a record high of 349 in 2012, and former Defense SecretaryLeon Panetta has described the situation as an epidemic.
My brother-in-law Jim is a vet who is also a practicing psychotherapist on the front lines; he serves returning vets 40×50 year in and year out. If you’re not Jim, you can connect to vets and those who serve them using this website; TEAM RWB…
Consider this:
Me? I’m blessed to know a vet and I thank God for him, his family and the sacrifices they have all made in the close to a couple decades I’ve known him. His name is Tim O’Neil and you’re a fool if you don’t connect with him on LinkedIn and snap him up before someone else does! For Tim and all the other vets out there, here’s a collection of LinkedIn resources to get started. I also pledge $1,000 worth of consulting services [more if needed] to help him land the job of his dreams. What will YOU do to help a vet? Comment below…
A dynamic page of resources for those looking to take advantage of LinkedIn…
A dynamic page of resources for those looking to take advantage of LinkedIn…
Thanks to Tim Kastelle for recommending this awesome book for thought leaders or “idea entrepreneurs” as the author calls them:
In Breaking Out, idea developer and adviser John Butman shows how the methods of today’s most popular “idea entrepreneurs”—including dog psychologistCesar Millan, French lifestyle guru Mireille GuilianoFrench Women Don’t Get Fat, TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie, and many others—can help you take an idea public and build influence for it.It isn’t easy. Butman argues that the rise of the “ideaplex” TED, Twitter, NPR, YouTube, online learning, and all the rest has caused such an explosion in the creation and sharing of ideas that it has become much easier to go public—yet much harder to gain influence. But it can be done.Based on his own experience in advising content experts worldwide, Butman shows how the idea entrepreneur breaks out—by combining personal narrative with rich content, creating many forms of expression from books to live events, developing real-world practices, and creating “respiration” around the idea such that other people can breathe it in and make it their own. The resulting idea platform can reach many different audience groups and continue to build influence for many years and even decades.If you have an idea and want to make a difference in your organization, build a change movement in your community, or improve the world in some way—this book will get you started on the journey to idea entrepreneurship.
Bright, shiny objects! 
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