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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

Last week, I met a friend for coffee.  He talked about a business idea, and then he asked me to sum up what people meant by “social media.”  I answered, “Integration.”  Twitter and Myspace integrated with Facebook, Facebook integrates with your personal experiences, and we all use the Social Web to integrate with one another and learn more about one another.

Recently, I tried to explain the concept of Apps to another friend.  I explained that many Apps allow a person to do in one or a fewer steps what once  took several minutes to do even on non-smart phones with Internet capabilities.  Other Apps allow people to do what cell phones could not do that long ago, even with the Internet.  They allow people to integrate with their phones in much the same way they would integrate through social media using their laptops or desktops.

The terms ‘social networking’ and ‘social media’ are often misused and used interchangeably.  Think of social networking in the same way you think of networking.  You network with people you know, people you want to know, and/or people who want to know you.  Now, think of social media in the same way you think of media.  You use various social media channels to network with people, learn information, or tell others your message.

Through social media, everyone who uses the World Wide Web can potentially interact with everyone else who uses the World Wide Web.  And that social interaction through sharing interests and using technologies allows us to integrate our experiences on the World Wide Web with our experiences in real life.

What is ‘social media’ and ‘social networking’ to you?  How do you use them?

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

Usually, I do this week in social media on Fridays.  This week I am going to do something like this week in SEO content; though, since almost everything that ever happens in the world of Web content is boring, I am going to focus on what’s new this week in Google Labs.  There’s several projects Google’s working on, but I’m going to focus on the one’s that looked the most interesting.

Google Reader Play – Choose which stories you like and want to remember or share with your friends.

Aardvark – Ask any question and Google will find the right person to answer it.

Follow Finder – Enter a Twitter user and find other Tweeters who have similar followers.

News Time Line – Visually explore the most important stories of any day, week, month, year, or even decade.

Related Links – Use this to find similar links from one site to any other site.

Google Mars – Explore the topography of this alien planet as if you were there.  For those with Google Earth, you can view Mars in 3D.  Go to View > Explore > Mars.

There are projects in the lab that are almost five years old, and some of the ones that have made it out of the lab still show up in the lab.  They’ve just graduated, and they show up as such.  Go ahead and explore those projects I’ve linked to above.  Check out what else is happening in Google Labs, including projects for Android.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

SEO content is like a martial arts duel.

Here’s some rules martial artists fight by:

1.     Be aware of your surroundings

2.     Adapt to changes within those surroundings

3.     Use what is available to you in those surroundings

4.     Recognize your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses

5.     Use your strengths to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses

There are more rules, but those five apply best to writing Web content.  How?  Let’s review the rules again and apply them to your efforts to rank well in the search engines.

1.     Be aware of your surroundings.

Search Engine Application: Check your rankings in the search engine’s

2.     Adapt to changes within those surroundings

Search Engine Application: When search engines introduce a new innovation like Google Instant, adapt your SEO strategy to those changes.

3.     Use what is available to you in those surroundings

Search Engine Application: This is where you need to go viral by blogging, using social media, and learning what does and does not work.

4.     Recognize your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses

Search Engine Application: Know who your opponent is, watch them in the search engines, watch them on the social Web, and adjust your strategy if need be.

5.     Use your strengths to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses

Search Engine Application: If your opponent doesn’t have a Facebook profile, make sure you launch one.  If your opponent only Tweets twice a day, Tweet five times a day.

Check out this fight between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris.  Notice how Bruce Lee changes his fighting style to use these rules.

Stay social my friends,

Erick