Tag: Social network

8+ tools for upgrading your Twitter experience

HootSuite Fluid icon
Image by yjsk via Flickr

Admit it: You might love Twitter as a social network, but you probably don’t love it as a service. Twitter is the Yugo of social tools — it can take you wherever to need to go, but there aren’t a whole lot of bells and whistles. Of course, Yugos probably broke down less often.

Twitter’s simplicity is probably a big part of why it has attracted so many new users over the last four years, but once you master the basics, it isn’t long before you find yourself wishing there was an easy way to unfollow inactive users or send private messages to several people at the same time. The good news is that Twitter makes it easy for developers to create tools that can take your Twitter experience from Yugo to Lexus without too much fuss.

Here are eight Web applications that you can use to kick your account into a higher gear. Note: For simplicity’s sake, I won’t get into full Twitter clients, mobile apps or analytics tools today — those weighty topics will have to wait for their own posts.

via smartblogs.com

What’s the + for? HootSuite. If you follow the ‘via’ link, you can read the author’s perspective. For me, however, HootSuite is the one tool that rules them all. Why? As a web based app with great mobile apps for iPhone or Android, it’s always available to be my social media dashboard — not only for Twitter, but for Facebook pages and other social media sites as well. HootSuite — don’t tweet home without it!

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4 must-have social-media dashboards for your business

Image representing Gist as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

While big brands and agencies have the luxury of resources and money, local businesses don’t. What they need is a social-media dashboard — an all-in-one, Web-based monitoring tool for Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites where customers hang out — that can optimize their online presence, engage with users and manage social campaigns. But that tool needs to meet three criteria: cheap, easy to use and automated. With that in mind, here’s a list of the top four that I find particularly well-suited for business use.

via venturebeat.com

I encourage you to follow the ‘via’ link and learn more about these ‘dashboards’. imho, the list is incomplete, however, without Gist and Google Reader. What are your favorite social dashboards?

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Survey Reveals 5 Opportunities for Churches on Facebook

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Most respondents indicated they don’t think their church is doing a particularly good job with Facebook. While those results could be perceived as negative, a closer look reveals some big opportunities for those churches willing to embrace the world’s largest social network.

  1. Communicate More – Clearly people would like to see their church do more on Facebook.
  2. Ministry Pages – A second opportunity for churches is for individual ministries to engage with people through Facebook pages.
  3. Facilitate Connections – A third opportunity for churches is to help their people connect with one another.
  4. Evangelism – A fourth opportunity for churches is to encourage and train their people to develop relationships with those who are not Christians and show God’s grace and love to them.
  5. Facebook Ads – A fifth opportunity for churches is to use Facebook ads to reach out to people in their community.

A detailed report on the survey results including lots of pretty charts and additional analysis is available at OurChurch.com.

via churchmarketingsucks.com

Happy Sunday! I’m blessed to be bringing a new client on board — Q90 FM in Green Bay. Here’s a great post from a great resource I found; Church Marketing Sucks! :-D

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Does the internet make you happy?

Apparently so say the Brits…

“There are those who believe that too much time spent on the Internet makes people less social and causes them to lose touch with the real world, but a new British study released today found that access to the Internet and the web, and especially to social networks such as Facebook, can improve people’s levels of happiness. The study found that Internet access improves the overall well-being of lower-income users, those with less education and women — particularly those in developing countries — by giving them a sense of freedom and control over their lives. The report, which was prepared for the former British Computer Society — now known as BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, with 70,000 members in over 120 countries — found what it calls a “statistically significant, positive impact on life satisfaction” as a result of having access to the Internet. Elizabeth Sparrow, president of BCS, said in a statement released along with the study that: Too often conventional wisdom assumes IT has a negative impact on life satisfaction, but the research has found the opposite to be true. IT has a direct positive impact on life satisfaction, even when controlling for income and other factors known to be important in determining well-being. The study, which was based in part on original research as well as on analysis of earlier studies on well-being and information technology, found that women, those with lower incomes and those with lower educational qualifications benefit the most from access to the Internet. “Much of the improvement in life satisfaction that arises from information technology flows to those on lower incomes or with fewer educational qualifications – what we might call the ‘disempowered’ groups in society,” the BCS report says.” Source: Yes, It’s True: The Internet Makes You Happier: Tech News «

Not convinced? Watch this…

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/979266267

Now you have proof to offer your family, friends, etc. that supports your internet ‘habit’. :-D

via ScribeFire
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Four reasons your Executive Director should be on Twitter

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Executive leaders at nonprofits should put community engagement via social media as a top priority in their job descriptions. They need to get their hands dirty.

But more often than not they don’t.

A broken model?

Usually, staffers do the “dirty work” with social media while management gets a debrief on ROI.

This is like having a nurses aid listen to a patient’s acute cardiac symptoms and tell the heart surgeon where to operate. A lot of critical information would be lost without the surgeon using her own stethoscope to listen directly to the patient’s heart.

Listening to your community is no different. Your community’s voice has a particular rhythm that can only be understood firsthand.

Four reasons EDs should be on Twitter

  1. Executive leaders can understand the community better through unfiltered direct access
  2. They can create greater trust within that community by demonstrating the orgs commitment to engage
  3. Respond faster to the community by eliminating the time it takes to play the telephone game
  4. They can anticipate needs that less experienced staff members might miss

But what if our executive leaders are too busy?

Too busy? If they aren’t willing to make an effort to hear firsthand from the people they serve, maybe they aren’t the right leaders for the organization.

via johnhaydon.com

…or maybe they don’t have the right tactics & tools. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more…

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Here’s a great example of a school district using Facebook wisely

Kudos to the school district of Janesville, WI for leveraging “good, fast, and cheap” social media tools. You can ‘like’ their page here…

Posted via email from e1evation, llc

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Easy Posting for Blogging Experts and First Timers Alike

I´m pleased to share with ThePRLawyer audience another amazing tool for public relations and marketing professionals called posterous.com. This website is designed for just about anyone to post music, videos, pictures and content on the Internet just by sending an email. There are options for first-time bloggers with simple instructions to get started and more advanced options for seasoned blogging experts.

Getting started is easy, sign up by sending an introductory email to posterous@posterous.com with the option to attach files like photos or videos and voilá! The reply is almost instant and you are set up with your very own part of the information superhighway. A variety of platforms (up to 30!) such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and/or Picasa can be integrated with your posterous. Once set up, you control where your information is going to be posted. It´s just that quick and easy.

Duct Tape Marketing´s John Jantsch explains the benefits for users by pointing out that “for many people, particularly those that rely on email as their primary communication and storage tool, this is a great way to create and curate content.” Jantsch also points out that posterous can be used as a hub for distribution with easy options to pick and choose what information to post and which platform it will be sent to.
via theprlawyer.com

Posted via web from Inside Posterous

I’ll be doing a webinar on using Posterous to establish thought leadership tomorrow at noon. It’s not too late to sign up…

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Taking your expertise for granted

Logo of Posterous
Image via Wikipedia

This post from Darren Rowse has me thinking about myself and the people in my trusted network…

“I recently was chatting with a new blogger and they made the comment that after 3 weeks of blogging that they’d run out of things to write about. They had written 10 posts so far but felt that they’d nothing else to share of value on the topic.

What surprised me about their comments was that the blogger was actually a seasoned pro in their niche. They were new to blogging about their topic but they’d been working in their industry for 25 years and were seen as an expert in their field…. yet they didn’t feel like they had anything to say about the topic!

I dug a little deeper and it turned out that the reason for their issue was not that they didn’t have much to write about – but that they were taking for granted the level of knowledge that they actually had. Much of what they’d learned over the years was now so basic to them that they didn’t realise how valuable it was for someone at a lower level of expertise.” Source: What Are You Taking For Granted That Might Be Useful to Others?

Are you one of those that doesn’t appreciate the fact that she’s an expert? Well — you’re wrong! You don’t get to this point in life without having gained expertise at something. Your expertise might only be interesting to 100 people on the planet, but by blogging, you’ll find them. Or more likely they’ll find you…

Having taught classes before on ‘finding your gift’, the one thing I’ve learned is that the more you exercise your ‘gift’, the more it feels like breathing. In other words, it becomes so natural that it’s just a part of you. And who would be interested in little old you?

Well? Your wrong. You’re an expert and your point of view is interesting to other people who aren’t as far along their path. Or who are. Or who are ahead of you. Here’s a dirty little secret; there are no experts. The body of knowledge is expanding so fast that no one can master it all. Your point of view is a valuable part of the puzzle but no one will ever know it unless you make your point of view public; searchable, findable and knowable!

How do you get started? I’ve researched all the tools and I haven’t found anything easier or more powerful than Posterous and the Posterous bookmarklet. Your expertise can turn you into a thought leader if you’ll only publish and promote your work! Comment, call or contact me to discuss how this applies to your business if I didn’t make myself clear…

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Ummm. Tell me again why I want to use social media to market my brand?

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What’s this?

“Nielsen recently released a new report that officially documents what many of us already know, just never substantiated through data. According to a study published at the end of January 2010, Nielsen observed the online social activity of consumers around the world and discovered an 82% increase in time spent on social networking sites in December 2009. On average, users spent more than five and a half hours on popular networks such as Facebook and Twitter in December 2009. In December 2008, users clocked just over three hours on social networking sites.” Source: Time Spent on Social Networks up 82% Around the World

Uh oh! If I leverage social media outposts to expand my brand into social media I may actually generate some leads…

;-)

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Getting it together

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Image via CrunchBase

Your online presence, that is…

“If you’re reading this post, there’s a good chance you have multiple online profiles scattered across various services, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Twitter. And one problem you may face is pulling all of this information together to build a single online identity — be it for personal use, or to create a professional online profile. Flavors.me is a new site launching today that looks to make this as simple as possible, and it does so with flying colors. After a three month long private beta, the site has just launched to the public.” Source: Flavors.me: A Dead Simple Way To Pull Your Online Presences Into One Place

I tried flavors.me. It’s cute. My take? It’s primarily geared toward casual online users that what a kind of internet ‘business card’ that puts all your online properties in one place…

If you’re really serious about getting it together on the internet, there are two tools that I recommend you use; Retaggr and Google profiles…

Retaggr has been around longer than Google profiles and I started using it over a year ago. Retaggr, which identifies itself as the ‘definitive online profile’ allows you to add your user name to any of the hundreds of social media tools they have inventoried. The result will be a nice profile like this that brings together all the stuff you’re doing online — they even give you a way to include the profile in your email signature!

More recently, Google has begun to offer a similar type of service. While it does not offer some of the bells and whistles that Retaggr [like widgets and gadgets, etc.] it does have the advantage of being smack on the Google backbone…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f2ywgldeiY&feature=player_embedded

Fortunately/unfortunately, we’ve read this book before and Google wins in the end — at least for the next 5 years or so. So, if you’re going to pick one or the other, check out Google profiles if you’re serious about putting together a social media dashboard for people you are hoping will find you…

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The top 5 ways to promote your business using LinkedIn

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I think author Lewis Howes is a little over the top here in his praise for LinkedIn, but I still think he’s worth quoting…

“LinkedIn is the most powerful social networking site to help you grow your business. It makes Twitter, Facebook and YouTube seem like social networking sites for kids.If you want to hang with the big players—a place where connections are made, leads are generated, and deals go down—then you need to spend more of your time on LinkedIn.

Although other sites have their purpose in the business world and many people utilize multiple social networking sites, LinkedIn is still the number-one place to market your business.” Source: Top 5 Ways to Market Your Business With LinkedIn | Social Media Examiner

His recommendations?

  • Use LinkedIn groups to generate leads
  • Ask questions and build credibility
  • Create events
  • Search in your target market
  • Send personal messages

Me personally? I think that Facebook has stolen LinkedIn’s lunch money. What I mean by that is that 5 years ago, LinkedIn was the serious tool for business social networkers and Facebook was the place where you spied on your kids. LinkedIn lost its popularity to Facebook which continues to gain momentum in the business space. I consider LinkedIn to still be one of the ‘big 3′ social media tools, but it’s a distant 3rd to Facebook and Twitter. Exception? LinkedIn continues to succeed in some business communities like Northeast Wisconsin where we are traditionally slow to adopt and slow to let go so it cannot be overlooked as part of a comprehensive social media campaign. If you want to get started with LinkedIn, you can’t go wrong by following Lewis Howes’ advice. If you can’t figure out what he’s talking about, contact me…

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Driving traffic using Twitter?

The Twitter fail whale error message.
Image via Wikipedia

Start here…

“If you are a small business owner like me, then you are no stranger to the fact that learning how to master Twitter can seem a little bit like wrestling a hungry alligator. Meaning, there is a steep learning curve and if you mess up it can be deadly.

Figuratively speaking, of course!

After using Twitter for the past couple of years, and following a lot of trial and error, below are ten ways that I think you can begin to use Twitter to drive more traffic to your small business blog.” Source: Top Ten Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Small Business Blog Using Twitter

Go to the source to get the 10 ways!

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Ponder this 2/20/2010

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Here are a couple of things to think about this weekend in the social media space…

“Whom do we increasingly trust less? Us.

It’s a finding that strikes at the foundation of many a social-media marketing philosophy: Tapping into peer-to-peer networks is a way for marketers to tell authentic, credible stories to consumers whose confidence in corporate CEOs, news outlets, government officials and industry analysts has taken a beating. But according to Edelman’s latest Trust Barometer, the number of people who view their friends and peers as credible sources of information about a company dropped by almost half, from 45% to 25%, since 2008. ” Source: Social Media: Consumers Trust Their Friends Less – Advertising Age – News

Some things to avoid…

“Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of social media, and I’m reminded of where we were in the mid-90s with the advent of the web. I lived and worked through Web 1.0, and am feeling a sense of déjà vu as we play out the same routines with Web 2.0 and beyond: social media is getting the same basic adoption patterns, the same reactions and overreactions. It’s just different tools and terminology. We have a long way to go before everyone and their cousin uses social networks more than they email, or tweets more than they call, but nobody can deny the way we communicate has once again been changed forever.” Source: 10 Things to Avoid In Social Media – WebWorkerDaily

If those two didn’t discourage you, here are some thoughts on getting social…

“Nowadays everyone wants social in their sites and applications. It’s become a basic requirement in consumer web software and is slowly infiltrating the enterprise as well. So what’s a designer to do when confronted with the requirements to “add social”? Designing social interfaces is more than just slapping on Twitter-like or Facebook-like features onto your site. Not all features are created equal and sometimes a little bit can go a long way. It’s important to consider your audience, your product—what your users will be rallying around and why they would want to become engaged with it and each other, and that you can approach this in a systematic way, a little bit at a time.” Source: 5 Steps to Building Social Experiences – Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design

Finally, some thoughts on Google Buzz…

“If you still haven’t made up your mind yet about Buzz, here are some useful tips for customizing and automating the service so that it can work with your other social networks. We’ll also look at some ways to share messages and links via Buzz with specific groups, which could make it a useful tool for the workplace.” Source: Google Buzz Tips and Tricks – WebWorkerDaily

My jury on Buzz is still out. You?

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TGIM 2/8/2010

I love Mondays! I get to go back to work at my quiet office with a supercomputer and a fast internet connection! Can’t wait…

In the meantime, Lifehacker is rating the five best Podcast managers…

“Podcasts offer a fantastic way to catch up news, listen to radio shows, and get great media delivered right to your computer (they’re like newsreaders for media). Check out these five popular podcast managers and let the entertainment come to you.

Last week we asked you to share your favorite tool for managing your podcast subscriptions. (The term for downloading a podcast is actually podcatching, and a podcast manager is a podcatcher—the more you know!) We rounded up the top five nominations, and now we’re back for you to review them and cast your vote for your favorite podcast manager.” Source: Five Best Podcast Managers – Podcasting – Lifehacker

Continue reading “TGIM 2/8/2010” →

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Teens break up with blogging…

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…and start flirting with Twitter!

“A new study published today by Pew Internet finds that teens and young adults are blogging less and using social networking sites more, with the prominent exception of Twitter.

Pew’s Report surveyed 2,253 American adults and 800 U.S. teens to get a reading of how they use the internet, which gadgets they own, and which social media tools they use the most.” Source: Teens Just Don’t Blog or Tweet [STATS]

Go to the source for the rest of the article. Some of the data will surprise you…

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Small business and social media

Brian Solis
Image via Wikipedia

Just because you’re a small business, doesn’t mean you can’t leverage social media — in fact, it’s quite the opposite…

“Social Media impacts every business, every brand, and in doing so, connects a network of distributed communities of influence, making the world a much smaller place in the process. Small businesses are in fact at an advantage in Social Media Marketing as they can focus on hyper-local activity that can offer immediate rewards or at the very least, the real-time feedback or lack thereof says everything about next steps.

A recent survey conducted by Citibank offers a contrary point of view, citing small business executives who believe social networks offer no benefit or promise to expanding their business. This isn’t all that uncommon however. The truth is that without knowledge or direct experience, it’s virtually impossible to envision the potential of something where they’re most likely absent as a consumer themselves.” Source: The Socialization of Small Business | Brian Solis

The article goes on to say…

“Ad-ology published its “Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010″ report that revealed that among the other benefits of social media, lead generation is the biggest benefit of online networking. Other benefits ranked as follows…” Source: The Socialization of Small Business | Brian Solis

You’ll have to go to the source to get the complete ranked list. Comment, call or contact me to discuss how this applies to your business!

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Tactic #9: Leverage the ‘homebases and outposts’ strategy

It has been awhile since I wrote about tactic #8; using branded mail…

Today I’m going to talk about the third pillar of the e1evation system; promoting your online brand and reputation through the leveraging of homebases and outposts. Pillars 1 and 2 are ‘finding your passion’ and ‘publishing’. Once you’re publishing and you’ve found your voice, it’s time to promote your content through the use of social media outposts. Chris Brogan starts us off here…

“Social networks are great places to meet new people, to build new business relationships, and to learn about information from non-traditional sources. But another great way to use social networking sites is as an outpost. What do I mean by this? It turns out that people getting to know you on social networks might also find your content for the first time, and/or something you post to those networks might bring you an opportunity that wouldn’t immediately come to you in other ways. ” Source: Using Outposts in Your Media Strategy

I first noticed the power of leveraging social media outposts during my ‘reign’ as one of the top political bloggers in Wisconsin. I noticed during that time that if I would cross-post to Facebook or some other social media tool, that the post would get more traffic. Although this idea seemed original to me, I found that other great minds like Chris Brogan and Darren Rowse were already heading down this path… Continue reading “Tactic #9: Leverage the ‘homebases and outposts’ strategy” →

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Websites and social media

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I’m fond of saying “the answer is rarely either/or but frequently both/and”. Mitch Joel talks about the roles and relationships of websites and social media and how the answer may be both/and…

“There are two schools of thought when it comes to marketing brands online and the presence they need.

1. Build a website that houses everything – all of your text, images, audio and video – in one, centralized, location.
2. Use the existing platforms and build your presence within their community (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc…).

Both have merit, and you can also do a little bit of both. For example you can house all of your branded content in your own website, and use the existing online communities to set-up outposts (as Chris Brogan calls them) – a specific Facebook Fan Page or a YouTube Channel – to further promote what you’re about with strong links back to your mothership (or website). You can also use a Facebook Page as your home base and direct people to a microsite for more information or to gather more data from them than Facebook might allow based on their terms of service. Personally, I advocate for owning your own space, building it and nurturing it and using those other/existing platforms to promote or extend the brand. Brands should own their content, community and type of conversation and not be beholden to the terms of service or whims of someone else.” Source: What A Website Will Be… And Never Be | Six Pixels of Separation – Marketing and Communications Blog – By Mitch Joel at Twist Image

This blog is a great example [in my humble opinion] of both/and. Both/and, however, does not have to take a lot of extra time. It’s easy to connect your social media outposts to your website for maximum effectiveness and traffic. Call, comment or contact — I’d love to connect with you around ‘how’…

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Moms and smartphones…

They’re not just for CEO’s anymore…

“Smartphones may have started as productivity tools for top executives, but they’re quickly finding their way into the hands and purses of “power moms,” a.k.a. the CEO of the household.

As smartphones become easier to use and in many ways more useful, more women, including busy moms, are buying them to leverage all kinds of digital applications to stay organized and to connect with their families, friends, and social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter. They’re also using these Internet-enabled devices to get things done like paying the bills, ordering groceries, downloading coupons, and hunting for ideas for the next family vacation.

And like their corporate counterparts, these women are hooked.” Source: Modern power moms flock to smartphones | Wireless – CNET News

Go to the source to read the rest of the article…

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Lately I’ve been struggling…

…with the issue of what is the best way to graphically depict the relationship between the various social media tools that I use. I think I may just end up settling with a flow chart for now, however, I’m finding some interesting stuff along the way such as this…

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Strategy vs. tactics in social media…

:en:Seth Godin
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Seth Godin on strategy vs. tactics…

New media creates a blizzard of tactical opportunities for marketers, and many of them cost nothing but time, which means you don’t need as much approval and support to launch them.

As a result, marketers are like kids at Rita‘s candy shoppe, gazing at all the pretty opportunities.

Most of us are afraid of strategy, because we don’t feel confident outlining one unless we’re sure it’s going to work. And the ‘work’ part is all tactical, so we focus on that. (Tactics are easy to outline, because we say, “I’m going to post this.” If we post it, we succeed. Strategy is scary to outline, because we describe results, not actions, and that means opportunity for failure.)

“Building a permission asset so we can grow our influence with our best customers over time” is a strategy. Using email, twitter or RSS along with newsletters, contests and a human voice are all tactics. In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy… and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place. Source: Seth’s Blog: When tactics drown out strategy

Go to the source to read more…

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