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Rather than focusing on one, or a few, open source program(s) and doing a series, I am going to pay tribute to one of the patriarchs of the open source-iphere.  So, rather than writing a review, I am going to provide you with the URLs to 10 Sourceforge content management systems.  If you are unfamiliar with Sourceforge, it is the open source software upon which open source microblogging software like StatusNet is built.  That’s right!  Much of the social media marketing we do is because of open source platforms.

I won’t do this every week.  To be honest, this is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while.  For now, this is my newest blogging experiment.  I am going to provide you with these links every once in a while, so you can run with the information and research these on your own.  There are so many Sourceforge open source software programs that it would take me forever to research them all myself.  And aside from that, you’d get bored.

On that note, you too can build software for your social networking endeavors using Sourceforge.  If you want to develop software, start by creating an account.

Next week I am going to focus on Open Source software for Macs.  I am not sure how long of a series that will be, but I’ll gather some Mac friendly Open Source software throughout this week and let you know in next week’s blog.

Here are those Source Forge CMS:

1. phpWebSite CMS
2. TYPO3 Content Management Framework (What’s a CMF?  It’s a customizable CMS.)
3. Exponent CMS
4. Alfresco CMS
5. TGS CMS
6. Post Nuke
7. Callisto CMS
8. Magnolia CMS/ECM/WCM
9. Falt4 CMS
10. Lanai CMS

Onto Mac specific OS software next week.

Erick

So, last week we looked at the open source blogging platform LifeType, and this and next week we’re going to look at a couple of great microblogging platforms for your business.  As I mentioned in last week’s blog, I did write a blog about StatusNet (“Branding Your Microblogging”) on 12/14, so scroll down for that blog.  Today, I want to tell you about another microblogging platform that will help you keep in touch with your employees and boost your social media marketing through collaborative efforts.

SocialCast is “enterprise microblogging,” or that is how they advertise themselves.  SocialCast helps businesses help their employees keep in touch with one another.  How do they do that?  Well, keep reading this blog to read a few ways.  At my last office job, my boss was my Phil Jackson (Lakers coach).  When someone from another department gave me trouble, I knew I could always count on him to make sure they stayed off my back, so I could do my job.  If he wasn’t around, I had to deal with whatever situation came up.  It would have been nice to know if he was in a meeting, at lunch, or in a closet avoiding my latest “I’m the best employee this company has!” attitude.  With SocialCast, you can update your status, so your fellow employees or employer knows where you are.

Much like Twitter, with SocialCast employees can not only update their status, but they can also take part in real time conversations, Q&A sessions, and share files with one another.  SocialCast also allows you to organize your microblogging streams, so you can communicate with all employees, preset groups (the creator must invite you), or specific employees.  That makes SocialCast great for sharing everything from newsletters to secret meetings about overthrowing the King of Lilliput.

For companies still not convinced SocialCast offers them anything that Twitter does not, SocialCast can be integrated with e-mail.  Of course, you can read message alerts in your e-mail inbox with Twitter, but if you want to respond to those message you have to log into Twitter.  With SocialCast you can respond right from your inbox.

And the list of great ways companies can utilize SocialCast goes on, but one more I want to tell you about is Social Business Intelligence.  This one is useful for you employers or HR managers who want to keep track of how people in your company are using SocialCast.  Check out what big account or client is most important to your employees.   And, of course, see who’s chatting with whom when they should be doing something a little more productive with their time.  There are many more great features to SocialCast, so go ahead and read all about them.

Of course there is a free and a premium version; though, the number of users your aloud to have is always unlimited.  For those companies that want to know more about the premium version, you can read about it here.  For those who just want to see how SocialCast’s free microblogging platform works, it includes the ability to have multiple administrators, you can add guest users, there is a desktop application, and there is basic e-mail and phone support.  There is more, which you can also read by clicking the above link, reading the SocialCast cookbook (a download on their homepage), read their blog, or visit their demo section.

So there’s a little about keeping social networking within your company, by using SocialCast to discuss various projects and company information.  It’s not open source, but the great people at SocialCast are nice enough to provide us with a generous portion of what they offer.  Come back next week for another great microblogging platform that will help you streamline your business efforts.  For those companies who would like to stramline their efforts even more, consider SEO content or other social networking options.

Check me out of Facebook or Twitter

Until next week,

Erick

Join me on Twitter and Facebook.

Happy Cyber Monday! I ran into a Website that offers social network analysis software so powerful that it goes on my top ten list for creating a social media marketing strategy. Techrigy offers a social media monitoring and analysis tool called SM2. It will help you promote and advertise your blog, strategize your social networking efforts, and minimize the time it takes to conduct that pesky social media research.

Always a sucker for free stuff, I set up a freemium account, which allows me to use most of the tools, but with way less results. The freemium version allows you to create a search based on 14 categories, using five keywords or terms, that gives 1,000 search results. For this blog, I will review five of those categories.

Overview

Let’s start with Google Analytics. Google Analytics allows webmasters to view who went to their Website or blog, thus enabling them to strategize how to draw attention to their site or blog. SM2 works in much the same way; however, SM2 allows people to do a type of reverse search, focusing on social media.

In the freemium version, you can compare two categories over two sets of dates. I compared ‘social networking’ to ‘seo content’ from 11/22-11/28. Load dates and two line graphs appears. Within my preset time period, people used the term ‘seo content’ more often everyday of last week than ‘social networking.’

Share of Voice

A bar graph showing seven categories appears. Since seo content appeared the most, I am more interested in that term. In that time period, seo content appeared in various social media platforms 192 times; though, it appeared in blogs 53 times. Below the bar graph, there is a line graph that tells me seo content appeared the most times in blogs on 11/25. If I want to know why, I can use the themes category.

Themes

When you first use themes, you will have to set up the search. Since, I am interested in seo content, I will filter my search for that term within the opted social media networks. Then, I set the dates and click finish. Since I am using the freemium version, SM2 won’t allow me to run this search (I already have one set up); though, there is a basic and advanced theme. The basic theme creates a tag cloud; whereas the advanced theme creates a balloon graph (I think that’s what they’re called).

Tone of Content

This shows me that on 11/25, of the 22 blogs written that used the term seo content, 21 blogs had a neutral or positive tones. Below the bar graph, a list of the blogs appears, all with sliders preset to show you the tone SM2 assigned to each blog. You can review those blogs, thus looking for a running theme as to why bloggers mentioned seo content on 11/25.

Top Authors

I want to create relationships with other bloggers. According to SM2, Robert Laidlaw mentioned ‘seo content’ eight times last week. When I click on the various links in his results they lead to webmasterforums, but his name doesn’t appear. I know how Techrigy’s algorithm works. I dug a little deeper. Robert is the webmaster, perhaps the owner, of webmasterforums, as well as president of Verticalscope, Inc. Since social networking is about making connections with other bloggers, social networkers, and the like, I am going to e-mail him to let him know I linked to him.

Conclusion

Okay, so there is so many other ways SM2 can help you with your social media marketing, but there are great tutorial videos in all of the categories. For anyone who needs a little boost with their social media networking, such as blog traffic exchange or social network development, SM2 will help you market your blog, set up a social network business plan, or offer more targeted social media marketing services. Meantime, if you need someone to write SEO Content for your site, write your blog, create a social network, or help you with your social network, check out http://www.seobridges.com/, and let me know how I can help you.

This morning, I want to examine another site useful to both PC and Mac users called experts-exchange.com. This web site helps experts find their answers by connecting them with other experts in their and other industries. For those who want a quick answer, or just do not care to interact with other people, they can use the knowledge database of 2.6 million solutions from various experts on everything from SEO content to Social Media Marketing to anything else. For those who want the most up to date answer, they can ask their question, which will receive an answer from one of their 50,000 experts. Most of the time those answers come only an hour after the question. For those who cannot wait for that possibility of an answer in less than an hour, they can sign up under one of the various plans and receive an answer within 30 minutes. For those, who enjoy the hunt, they can explore the various categories for the solutions themselves. Experts-exchange.com offers every expert a way to search for and come to the answer they desire.

For those who need answers to questions regarding Microsoft, they can search under applications, development, hardware, internet protocols, MS forefront-ISA, OS, or server applications sections. For those who need an answer to an Apple issue, Experts-exchange.com offers solutions in five categories: Hardware, networking, operating system, programming, and software. Again, in my opinion, while the Apple section of the website does not offer the plethora of solutions, that is because they are not needed. Also, since Apples can run MS Office, some of the answers in the MS section apply to Macs.

For those who do not have a computer specific question, there is also an internet section that includes answers in nine categories: Anti Spam, Anti spyware, Anti-virus, chat/IM, E-mail clients, File sharing, New net users, search engines, web browsers, web development, web servers, and web trends/stats. Beyond that, experts-exchange.com also offers answers to questions regarding gamers, digital living, virus and spyware, hardware, software, ITPro, and Developer. Just to the right of the developer section, almost unnoticeable, there are two yellow arrows with the word ‘more’ below them. ’More’ includes answers to questions about storage, OS, Database, Security, programming, web development, networking, and even a section for ‘other.’ In each section, below the categories, Experts-exchange.com lists the top articles; and on the right, they list the top experts.

For those who want to read through random articles; though, don’t want to take the time to filter them, they can read random articles in the Articles section. There, experts can search through articles, filter them into one of several categories, or write an article. Of course, for those who want to write an article, they must first have a membership and be an expert in their field.Beyond all of the answers, for those who feel a bit overwhelmed by Experts-exchange.com, there are video tutorials (It is written in Xhtml or javascript, so I can’t blue link it, but it’s above the search bar on the right). The video tutorials section includes welcome, getting started, searching for solutions, asking a question, and contributing to the site videos. And after users become familiar with the basic search functions, there are advanced search functions that give them more search control.

All in all, Experts-exchange gives the experts the ability to interact and exchange ideas with other experts within and outside of their fields.  This is a great way to write Web content and then implement into your Social Media Marketing strategy.

Come back next week for my next review of a great site that will make your life easier.

Erick