seobridges.com

This last weekend, the writer of this blog went through his Twitter list and un-followed many Tweeters he never followed or who don’t tweet consistently. Most of the profiles gave basic information, but the writer of this blog noticed a mistake a few tweeters made.

The writer of this blog wants you to know people who use Twitter should not write their bio in the third person. People want to connect with the person they think they’re connecting with, and the bio gives the first impression. It’s important to note one of the worst possible ways to give the wrong first impression is to write a Twitter bio in the third person.

The writer of this blog feels it’s important to let you know if you outsource your social media to a company like SEO Bridges, you should continue to engage, while using that company to send promotional and informative tweets. General ‘thank you for the retweet’ and other such tweets are also okay.

The writer of this blog is of the persuasion that if an author, speaker, business owner, or other person can afford to outsource their Twitter duties to a company like SEO Bridges, he/she can afford to pay that company to write their bio in the first person.

The writer of this blog wrote this blog in the third person to make the point that writing one’s own stuff in the third person makes that person seem disconnected.

Stay social my friends,

The writer of this blog

On Superbowl Sunday 1984, Apple Introduced the Macintosh with this commercial:

Last week, Facebook introduced curated search, which will allow them to advertise on people’s walls according to what they ‘Like’ on other people’s wall. In late 2010, Google introduced Google Hotpot, and yesterday they introduced Google Circles. Both give search results based on recommendations by friends. Guest blogger Paul Greenberg wrote on BrianSolis.com:

“While between 72% (baby boomers) and 89% (Gen Y) have an account on some social site, 70% of them use them for personal reasons, while only 23% use them to interact with brands. Notably 39% of them use them for reviews – meaning peer trust when it comes to a brand or specific product or service.”

According to Greenberg’s findings and estimates based on my calculations, Facebook’s curated search and Google’s social search will lead to an estimated 16.56% return on relevant search results for baby boomers and 34.71% return on relevant search results for Gen Y users (No results for Gen X).

Facebook’s and Google’s innovations will create a social media oligarchy of users who interact with the Social Web through a stream of ‘Likes,’ posts, and recommendations, using computers, smart phones, tablets, and other technological devices. It will cause people and businesses to either interact with the Social Web according to these new rules of the social media oligarchy or become part of a social media caste system.

All in all, the future of social media will compartmentalize into the ‘interactive’ and the ‘non-interactive,’ causing the Social Web and the Semantic Web to merge and evolve into the Synergistic Web.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#media#monitoring #social#media #conversational#web #social#web #social#media#marketing #customer#feedback #discussion#groups #target#audience

Last week, I took part in a group study for a potential new game show.  I sat in a room with about fifty people and held a gadget with a dial that connected to a computer in another room.

To one side, the gadget had a + and ++ sign, and to the other it had a – and – – signs.  The test conductor instructed us to turn the dial according to however the show made us feel.

During the show, I thought it would be nice if I could test how people responded to messages I sent out into the world.  And then I realized there are.  In fact, I’ve blogged about them.

Listening to the Conversational Web

Monitoring the ROI of Social Media Marketing

Identifying Your Audience’s Common Denominator

Playing the Social Media Market

Day 1: The Value of Monitoring the Social Web

Day 2: The Value of Monitoring the Social Web

Day 3: The Value of Monitoring the Social Web

Day 4: The Value of Monitoring the Social Web

After the show, they let about half of us go home early.  They kept the other half for discussion groups.  I have a feeling they let the people who were indifferent to the show go home early.

Let the people who are indifferent to your message go home early.  Interact with those people who interact positively with you, get feedback from people who might react negatively toward your message, and don’t worry about the people who remain indifferent to your message.  They’re not your target audience, and they probably either don’t have anything constructive (criticism or other feedback) to add to the conversation or won’t share.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#networking #social#media #social#web #social#media#monitoring #social#media#analytics

Social media marketers want their social media monitoring tools to include the capabilities to listen to various voices throughout the social Web, the versatility to allow them to listen to and engage with their audience, and the efficiency they require to manage their time effectively.  It’s no longer enough for a social media monitoring tool to just listen to the social Web.  It is pertinent that it allow a person to engage with the social Web through social networking thus inspiring the conversational Web. That’s why for my last blog on social media monitoring tools I am going to tell you about Sendible.  Here’s some of what this tool include.

1.     Six payment options that include the ability to schedule messages to send to 100 to an infinite number of contacts (including posting directly to contacts’ Facebook walls) on more than 10 social networking sites, brand monitoring, e-mail tracking and analytics, and so much more.

2.     Monitor the Internet for mentions of pre-selected words, translate them to any of 60 languages, send them directly from Sendible to your chosen contacts, and so much more.

3.     Monitor which of the messages you sent out received the most clicks and which sites referred you.

4.     Monitor your site’s analytics, including traffic sources, content overview, and map overlay.

5.     Automatically follow people on Twitter with similar interests to you and automatically welcome people when they follow you.

There’s so much more Sendible can do, and there’re more videos on their Youtube Channel.  The great part about it is that if you’re just getting started with social media marketing there is so much they will allow you to do without ever being charged to use their service.  Come by tomorrow for a look at this week in social media marketing and social media monitoring.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#networking #social#media #social#web #social#media#monitoring #social#media#analytics

I could tell you about plenty of social media monitoring tools that tell you everything from who mentions you, your brand, and anything about your competitor to how they felt when they mentioned whatever they mentioned.  You can spend any amount of money on a social media analytics tool from $0 to $2,000 a month.  Yes, there are social media monitoring agencies that cost that much.  Those monitor everything including mentions in print and television ads.  ViralHeat can’t monitor everything everywhere, but I think it does a pretty good job for only $9.99 per month.

1.     Add up to five profiles and monitor keywords globally or within a set radius of any city.

2.     Use the dashboard  to see your influence by volume, trends, and Average/Profile.

3.     Use the Dashboard to see what’s viral in your Twitter, Facebook, and other accounts

4.     Click on your profile inside the dashboard to see your top influencers by volume and impact.

5.     Set up alerts to send to yourself and/or your clients

There’s much more ViralHeat can do, but those are the features available on the basic account for only $9.99 per month.  A professional account is $29.99 per month, and a business account is $89.99 per month.  Those include the ability to add more profiles, monitor more of the real-time and social Web, and check out your influencers’ analytics.  Tomorrow, I’ll blog about one last social media monitoring service that offers the most options and opportunity for its cost.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

One thing that’s important to us is the ability to keep our social networking local.  We are more than willing to work with a person/company on the east coast, Canada, or anywhere else in the world.  But a large segment of our audience is here in San Diego.  For that reason, it’s important to us to use a social media monitoring service that allows us to keep our social media marketing efforts local.  Sprout Social will allow you to reach a global market while listening to a local audience.

Sprout Social

1.     Use the + symbol at the top of screen to connect up to five Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare profiles.

2.     Use the inbox tab to view your Twitter follower demographics on a pie chart, a social scorecard that tells you the change in your message volume and engagement, and the overall rating of your engagement and influence.

3.     Use the inbox tab to see and answer all your messages from those social networks you’ve connected to, including the ability to see your new followers and follow them.

4.     Use the discovery tab to search for new Tweeters to follow (globally or locally) based on keywords, your business mentions throughout the social web, articles and blogs that mention keywords you select, a Business 360 Agent that graphs your social media interaction, and more.

5.     Use the promotions tab to schedule one time or recurring messages on Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook.  If you want to send messages to those social networks now, just click on the icon of the pencil over the piece of paper at the top of the screen.

There’s much more you can do with Sprout Social, so I encourage you to check out their free trial.  They offer a professional package for $9 a month and a business package for $49 a month.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#networking #social#media #social#web #social#media#monitoring #social#media#analytics

One of the most annoying things about trying to choose a social media monitoring tool is all the options.  Often, enterprise social media analytics like Alterian’s SM2 and Radian6 are too expensive and overwhelming.  And those services that will monitor your social media presence using the best value aren’t easy to find.  That’s why I found cost effective social media monitoring alternatives that offer any social media marketer on any budget the most value for the money.  Everyday this week I’ll tell you about a new social media monitoring tool that costs $10 or less per month, and I’ll end the week with a look at this week in social media monitoring.

PostRank

1.     Monitor up to five sites and ten social networking sites.

2.     Use Overview to see your engagement throughout the social Web throughout the last week, month, or three months.

3.     Use Analyze to see how your blogs ranked using a points system, and filter your posts, to see which individual posts ranked highest.

4.     Use Analyze to see which pages on your site receive the most attention and how people interacted with each page.

5.     Use Trends to see your top ten blogs over the last three months, the social media sites they received the most attention from, and your top ten influencers.

6.      Use Optimize to see how people engaged with you on ten different social networking sites.

PostRank offers a free 30 day trial so you can explore everything they offer, and they’re always looking for ways to improve.  They also offer enterprise social media monitoring, so you can monitor up to 200 sites and connect 50 social networking to each of those.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#media#marketing #social#media#monitoring #Twitter #Facebook #conversation #social#networking #conversational#web #social#media#conversation

So, last week you indirectly told me you want to talk about listening to your audience, so we’re going to continue with that conversation.  I’m not going to talk about social media monitoring, but I am going to talk about how to keep the social media conversation going.

Much of my audience comes from Twitter.  I can’t say most of my audience comes from Twitter, because with my site there is no ‘most’  (more than 50%), but many of you come from there.  So, when it comes to keeping the social media conversation going I’m focusing on Twitter.

Imagine you’re at a party and you’re in a conversation with five people and two or three people are making eye contact with you, while the attention of the others is waning, those are the people you want to make eye contact with.  Just because someone at that party is part of your audience doesn’t mean their listening to everything you say.  You have to say something to capture their attention first.

In terms of social media, if people are listening to you on Twitter, focus the conversational side your social media marketing there.  If people are paying attention to you on Facebook, spend time there.  Always focus the conversational side of your social media marketing efforts wherever people are listening to you the most. For those in your audience whose attention you may have lost, say something interesting to get their attention back.

After you know who is listening to you, engage them in conversation.  Don’t be like that person at the party who talks for 20 minutes straight, causing the eyes of people in his/her audience to glaze over.  People are listening to you either because they want to learn from you and may have questions or they have something intelligent to add to the conversation.

Any questions, comments, or snide remarks?

Stay social,

Erick

Over the next three days, I’ll talk about using social media to listen to your audience, adjust your brand message, and stop crises from adversely affecting your brand.  Each day I’ll list a few services to help you in that process.

ViralHeat

• Discover new Twitter leads and potential Facebook fans
• Follow conversations about your brand or product as they happen
• Set up alerts that allow you to monitor your brand, topic, or product

Crimson Hexagon

• Measures statistical patterns in words used in blogs, forums, Tweets, etc.
• Monitor real-time, global conversations that affect your brand
• Monitor the ROI of online marketing and PR investment

There’s also a video on their site.

Visible Intelligence

• Monitor wikis, video sharing, and custom RSS feeds
• Monitor what people are saying in over 50 languages
• Monitor historical trends going back to 2005

Imagine paying thousands of dollars for an advertisement during the David Letterman Show. You can use a service like Nielsen Rating to conduct a study of your potential and actual audience based on demographics. The problem is that just because a certain population set’s televisions are on doesn’t mean they’re watching or paying attention to the commercial. Web analytics gets a little more personal, in that it not only allows you to monitor the segment of a given population that comes to your website, but you can also monitor things like bounce and click rate. Therein lies the problem that people Web surf like they channel surf. Social media monitoring allows you to identify specific people within a given population who engage with your message, how they engage with your message, whether or not they engage with your competitor’s message, and much more.

Traditional marketing measures potential ROI according to what has and has not worked. Web marketing measures potential ROI according to the Web statistics of anonymous users’ computers. Social media marketing monitors actual ROI according to the ability to engage with one’s audience through the social Web. While all three forms of marketing require financial and time investments, traditional marketing and Web marketing require greater financial investments, whereas social media marketing requires a greater time investment.

In many cases, people are so used to the greater financial investment of traditional and Web marketing that they can’t imagine that free or low-cost social media marketing would have long-term ROI.  Those who are skeptical of the value of using social media marketing must understand that since the values of the investments are different, the returns on those investments are also different.

Come back tomorrow, and I’ll tell you more about those differences.

Stay social,

Erick

My mother always told me if you can’t say it in 140 characters or less, it’s not microblogging.

Enjoy!

Mobile Microblogging

tinySCRAP – Location based microblogging

Qaiku – Integrates with Facebook

brightkite – Integrates with Facebook and more

Seesmic – Includes desktop app

floort – Share your opinion about anything * Integrates with Facebook, Twitter, Live, and Ning

P2 – WordPress microblogging

tumblr - Integrates with iPhone, Facebook, AIM, Twitter, and more

mysay – Record what you’re saying

Zannel – Share videos and photos

Rememble – Add texts, videos, pics, and audio clips from your PC

Build a Microblogging Community

Typepad Motion – Bring Microblogging to your website

Jaiku – Post from the Web, by SMS, or from desktop clients

Yonkly – You can host it yourself, and they have an opensource edition

Twingr – Stay in touch with friends, family, or those who share your interests

Microbloghost – This is a WordPress based microblogging host with an online translator

Business Microblogging

Socialcast – A microblogging platform that allow companies to stay in touch with their customers and employees * Integrate with iPhone and Blackberry/Includes desktop app

Cestu – A social marketplace for businesses to promote their products, services, etc

sharetronix – Microblogging with a multi-media corporate version

SlideShare – Upload and share PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and Adobe PDF Portfolios

Socialtext –  Includes social networking, microblogging, Wiki Workspaces, and more

Yammer – Helps companies stay in touch with their customers and employees.

Yahoo Meme – Of course Yahoo joined the microblogging craze.

presently –     A microblogging platform that allows companies to stay in touch with their customers and employees

Others

Identica –  A microblogging service similar to Twitter

koornk – A basic microblogging platform

Flattr – A microblogging platform that allows you to show the love by sharing the wealth

Twit Army – A public timeline based on laconica

youare – Import your life from Youtube, Flickr, Delicious * Includes a WordPress theme

posterous – Post by e-mailing post@posterouscom

dailybooth – A picture and video sharing microblog

hictu – Build a microblog with video, audio, and text posts

Spotjots – Share your life in pics with the world

12seconds –  Send video updates * Integrates with Twitter and Facebook

Sweetter –  Opensource microblogging

Sprouter – Collaborate and networking with other entrepreneurs

plerb – A basic microblogging platform

meemi – Microblog and comment on people’s posts

Secondbrain – Discover and share great bookmarks

textcurve –  Share anything anonymously

sFeed – A shopping microblog that focuses on fashion news and entertainment

blellow – Allows freelancers and professionals to collaborate, find work, and be more productive

twingly – Follow and discuss various topics or events

FriendFeed – A microblogging platform Integrates with Facebook, Google, and Twitter

echowaves – Pick up your conversation where you left off

blurtit – Ask questions and get answers

Plurk –  A basic microblogging platform

Vixles – Location based microblogging

There’s a few others, but they weren’t worth mentioning.

Go ahead and comment, Tweet me , or e-mail me.

Erick