seobridges.com

If you use Twitter, you’re probably using a Twitter desktop client like Hootsuite. If you’re not, you’ll want to set that up and connect it to Twitter and your other social media accounts. You can also try Tweetdeck or Seesmic, but I prefer the ease and functionality of Hootsuite.

At some point, you’ll want to create Twitter lists, which can help you raise your Klout score and manage your online conversations. Create lists that are useful to yourself and your followers. The more attractive the lists you create, the more people will want to follow those lists. And if you’re worried about your online reputation, Klout judges you by whom you add to your lists and who follows your lists.

Once you’ve created your lists, and you’ve chosen your Desktop client, you can turn up to ten lists into columns on Hootsuite. I turned my Conversationalists, Informative Tweeters, and SD Writers and friends lists into columns. I included those lists because they consist of Tweeters I want to engage with the most and those sources of information I find the most relevant. I reserve my other columns for keywords, hashtags, and my home feed.

One other way Klout judges you is according to how people interact with you. So set up lists of people most likely to engage with you, retweet you, and/or thank you for retweeting them. If you want to follow some great people who will get into conversations with you, follow my Conversationalists list, interact with tweeters on that lists, find other conversational Tweeters, and check out my blog about Engaging on Twitter.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Google consists of 1,980,000,000 pages. Here are their top ten tools:

Google Realtime – Find out what’s going on in real time.

Google Trends – Find out what keywords are trending, compare them to other keywords, and see how people are searching them.

Google Squared – Type in a topic. Google will return a list of related topics from top resources in boxes. Deselect sources you don’t want, click “Add to this square,” and get information from the most reliable sources.

Quick Search Box – This downloads onto your computer and allows you to search your computer or the internet for any topic you want.

Website optimizer – Set up an experiment, and get suggestions to optimize your website.

Search insights – Set up your search terms; filter how, when, and in what region you want to search; click search and see how people search for your given terms.  You can also localize it.

Keyword Tool – What you once knew as SKTool is now their Adwords tool.  Enter a website, a few search terms, click search, and find top related Google keywords.

Youtube Insights for Audiences – Set up the gender, age range, and region you want to search according to, and click search.  Then, see what categories their searching in and searching the most, along with which keywords they’re using, and the videos they’re watching.

Business offers – This brings the idea of social couponing to your website.  You run it; Google markets it.

Submit Your Content – Tell Google what kind of content you offer, and they will help you get it to your target audience.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Over the weekend, I watched National Treasure with Nicolas Cage. While it was one of his rare decent movies, Cage doesn’t make a good action hero or tough guy. The only thing that could be worse is if Cage and David Schwimmer teamed up to be the dynamic duo in the next Batman movie. According to IMDB, most people who rate his movies rated 45 of his movies below average. And Forbes and Comcast agreed he’s one of Hollywood’s most overpaid actors. Still, he’s won many awards and received nominations for many more.

While watching National Treasure, I started wondering if social media could save Nicolas Cage from being known as an overpaid, self-indulgent, block buster wanna be, B actor who rarely rises above the status quo of acting. I think it can. I think social media can save anyone from only meeting the status quo of any profession.

Just as all of Cage’s movies, awards, and millions of dollars won’t change how people feel about his acting, the mark of someone who uses social media well is not their thousands of Facebook fans or Twitter followers. It’s how they interact with and listen to those fans and followers. People judge people on the Web by the quality of their content and how they use social media to engage with their friends and followers.

Cage rarely rises above the status quo of acting, perhaps in part to his lack of listening to his fans and critics. The question is are you listening to your fans and followers and rising above the social media status quo?

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Last week, I downloaded a new desktop application called Facebook Desktop. Much like FriendFeed’s desktop application, friends’ status updates on this desktop application appear in the upper, right-hand corner of your computer screen. If you want to respond to a friend’s status update, just click on their picture, and a link will bring you to that person’s update. You can also post your own status updates in a box that appears in the middle of your screen.

Facebook desktop doesn’t consist of all of the SaaS features of Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, but it also doesn’t consist of an impersonal FAQ page. At least not yet.  What impressed me most about Facebook Desktop weren’t any of the features, rather it was the personal attention I received from creator Charles Bihis.

When I Tweeted Charles to let him know about some initial bugs, he thanked me for letting him know, fixed the problem, let me know he resolved the issue, asked me to tweet him to let him know if it worked okay, and made himself available.  Yes, Hootsuite, Seesmic, and other social services will respond to your tweets; though, you’ll most likely get a response like, “Thank you for the Tweet. We’re looking into the issue.”

Charles’ personal touch told me we can expect more from him and Facebook Desktop, so keep watching and keep connecting.  Charles personal attention and quick response impressed me so much that I told him I’d write a blog about his new desktop application.  If you want to learn more about Facebook Desktop and connect with them, you can follow them @FacebookDesktop.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

If you’ve perused my blog before, you probably noticed a few recent changes. No more large buttons at the top of the right hand column. I like to play with widgets, and I like to see how people who visit my site interact with widgets I use. I thought it was time for a change.

First, let me tell you why I added the widgets I added. I added the tag cloud because people like to click. I’d rather just click a button than type words. For those who want to find specific blogs, using specific keywords, or still like to type, I kept the traditional search feature. I kept the Amazon widget, but I may play around with the colors. I added widgets to a couple of my favorite bloggers, and I may add widgets to a few more. I may also add more widgets.

I want to make my site more interactive, meaning I want you to come to my site and get the information you need related to my site. I want you to know you can bookmark my site, click on it when you need it, and click on whatever topic you want to find related to my site. I want you to trust you can find the information you want to find, related to my site, by going to my site. And I want you to know I am listening to you.

So, please let me know what I can do to make my site more user and search friendly and more interactive for you. I have my magnifying glass out, I hear the theme music, Penny and Brain are running across the screen, and a trio of women are singing “Inspector Widget.” Sometimes, the best way to be more social is just to ask, so I’m asking you how can I be more social for you?

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Along with my business venture, I’m writing a novel. I developed a literary theory of what a good story should look like, or at least I thought I developed this particular literary theory. I discovered recently authors like Raymond Carver, Margaret Atwood, John Updike, Chuck Palahniuk, and Ernest Hemingway developed the theory of literary minimalism before me. Below, I outlined the major points of Literary Minimalism, and then I wrote out how those translate in the major points of Social Media Minimalism.

Literary Minimalism:

1. Uses an economy of words.

2. Focuses on surface description by allowing context to dictate meaning.

3. Expects the reader to take an active role in the creation of the story.

4. Allows the reader to choose whom they love or hate, through hints and innuendos, rather than telling them.

5. Uses ordinary people with ordinary problems.

Social Media Minimalism:

1. Uses brevity through microblogging, status updates, and blogging.

2. Gives the basics of social media, through the dissemination of relevant tools and tips, by which one can become more social media savvy.

3. Encourages conversation and comfortable participation in an active and impartial community that does not squelch differing opinions.

4. Remains objective in that it does not rely on any one tool more than another, and balances its use of search and social.

5. Does not focus on popularity or numbers, rather it adds value to an established audience.

Those are what I consider the five attributes of Social Media Minimalism. I may develop those more, but those are my first thoughts. Would you add any others? Read more about Literary Minimalism to get a better idea of what might define Social Media Minimalism.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

I have a meeting this morning, so I am not going to write a blog that requires much research. I try to write informative blogs or offer videos that give relevant information. This morning, I am just going to encourage you that whether it’s tweeting, writing blogs, going to meetings, or anything else, consider the ROI (Return on Investment).

I view my meeting this morning as an example of the culmination of all my social media efforts or at least one example. That is to say that all my blogs, every single tweet or Facebook post, and all my social media efforts has led up to this meeting. There have been other significant days, and there will be more significant days; though, if you look at each day as a mile stone, you’ll accomplish more.  Set goals and consider the ROI of your action according to those goals.

Set personal, financial, physical, social, spiritual (if you are spiritual), career, and family goals. Start out by setting tangible goals you can work toward now. Keep them as simple as something like “Make my bed daily.” Yes, that’s one of my goals, and I do it. Then, set one year goals, such as “Read 20 books.” It’s a little harder, but not undoable. Last, set five year goals, such as “Publish a novel.”  Right now, that one seems about 20 years off.

Take it one day at a time, the next day won’t seem as bad as the one before it.  Oh, and think about asking a friend, your spouse, or a business partner to hold you accountable to achieving your goals.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

For SEO and webmasters concerned about recent updates to Google’s algorithm, I recommend reviewing Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Google favors well designed websites, original content that adds value, and links to reputable websites. Think of a website like a house.

An architect doesn’t design a house so a person walks into the garage when they open the front door. In the same way, a website should welcome visitors, let them know what the site is about, and encourage them to discover more.

An architect designs every room with at least one door to and from another room. In the same way, each page of a website should be accessible from at least one static text link; and the page titles should tell users where those links lead.

Just as an architect designs a house with windows to allow visibility, an SEO should submit their website to search engines and link to relevant websites. This will allow potential visitors to see your site and current visitors to find relevant information.

And just as a contractor adds certain appliances to certain rooms, you should add content that is relevant to specific pages. Don’t talk about widgets if the title of your page is gadgets.

Finally, just as any good contractor should make sure all of the plumbing and electrical in the house functions right, you want to use good coding and make sure all of the links work.

If you follow these rules, your site will maintain its integrity no matter how often Google changes its algorithm.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

I’ve read a few blogs recently on the relevancy of FourSquare, so I thought I’d chime in. Last September I wrote a blog called Foursquare: The Poofy Hair of the World Wide Web, in which I wrote, “Foursquare will either fade away or they will have to restructure their business model to fit a new fad.”

Today, while I still believe FourSquare’s longevity is dependent upon restructuring its business model, the word ‘fad’ within that sentence was not the right word. People are tired of social media fads. People don’t want to become relevant to social media; they want social media to become relevant to them.

In a more recent post, I wrote of Why Facebook’s and Google’s Social Searches Won’t Work. Social media sites are starting to encourage people to interact with their friends and followers off-line (Aesthetic vs. Augmented Value of Social Media). I believe that is a good thing; though, I think social media sites are in danger of creating a social media caste system (The Rise of the Social Media Oligarchy).

Consider the games you played when you were ages 5 – 10 or 10 & up. Gaming companies put age ranges on their products to market to certain crowds. In the same way, online gaming sites market to a certain type of person; and in the same way, those persons will either outgrow those gaming sites or find better things to do.

I have no problem with the idea of checking-in to venues and those venues rewarding people for customer loyalty. I have a problem with Foursquare trying to turn those check-ins into games based on popularity.

Stay social my friends!

Erick

With the rise of social media curation tools like Storify , the value of what you tweet and post on Facebook is becoming largely dependent upon the relationships between the category of your website and the categories of the website(s) your tweeting or posting about.

Right now, if I Google ‘Social Media,’ I receive 161,000,000 hits. If I search for ‘Social Media’ within the last 24 hours, I receive 56,400,000 hits. It would take countless wasted hours to sort through all of those hits.

Google categorizes your site according to the anchor text, title, and keywords in the URL of your site’s pages. They also use the anchor text, title, and keywords in the URL of sites you link to to determine how relatable your site is to that topic.

So, if you want to find the most relevant blogs and articles on any given topic within any period of time, use the search parameters allinanchor:seo+content, allinurl:seo+content or allintitle:seo+content. You can also use a combination of those three if you want very specific results.

The Web is becoming more and more dependent upon relationships. Not just relationships between people, but also relationships between websites. Go through your website and consider the keywords in your anchor text, url, and title. Consider the same of sites you link to, tweet, or post on Facebook. Finally, consider their relationships and the the relevancy of their relationships to the overall message of your site.

For more on how to get the most out of Google, check out this Free Search Guide.

Stay social my friends,

Erick