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No matter whether you’re a social media novice, aficionado, or expert, there is bound to be something in this book you can glean from. It’s a great resource for teachers and students, and it covers all of the basis from blogging to the importance of a social media plan.

If you’ve read this book, let me know your thoughts. I’d love to glean from you, and learn what has and has not worked. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, you can buy it below.

The Social Media Survival Guide by Deltina Hay

You can learn more about Deltina by visiting her website, Social Media Power, or following her @Deltina.

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

#Google#Chrome #Social#Media

Here are what I consider the 10 most useful #apps for #Facebook, #Twitter, and #Youtube Google Chrome offers.

Facebook:

1. Always https (for Facebook and Twitter) – This app allows you to browse Facebook and Twitter securely, as well as it also bypasses proxies. They plan to add an on/off button, and they may extend support to other websites.

2. Better Facebook – This will turn your Facebook browsing into a whole new experience. Among other things, you can change your theme, control which feeds you see, and more. Once you install it, log into Facebook, and change your ‘options’ next to the ‘home’ button in the top blue bar.

3. F.B. Purity – Cleans up Facebook – This gets rid of application spam and improves your Facebook experience. It also allows you to hide messages, such as who you became friends with, what events you are attending, your changed status, and more.

4. Facebook Application Blocker – I used to receive posts from certain friends and relatives who posted from applications. Now, I don’t.

5. Facebook Invite All – If you go to this blog and watch the second video, it will explain how you use this app. This is useful for those people with fan pages.

6. Power Twitter for Chrome – With this you can do more than just post on Twitter. You can post photos, shorten links, update your mood, and send a Twitter gift.

Youtube

7. SmartVideo for Youtube – This gives you different video playing options, including the option to start videos once the page loads, the video buffers, and more. You can also loop videos and enable HD.

Twitter

8. Twitter Extender – This app allows you to highlight your mentions in timelines, hide mentions, and more.

9. Twitter Plus Plus – Highlight your mentions, desktop notifications, and more.

10. Twitter Reactions – You can use this to show the world how you feel about whatever you’re reading.

Would you add any to, or take any away from, this list?  There are many more at the Chrome Web store. Check them out and Enjoy!

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#Goodreads #Writing #SocialMedia #Writers

If you’re a writer, you should set up a profile on Goodreads (GR), so you can spin an attractive writer’s web. 26.21% of unique visitors to GR come from Google, so you want to fill your GR account with attractive keywords. Begin spinning your web with these high impact keywords:

Books:

The Great Gatsby
The Catcher in the Rye
The Hunger Games
Never Let Me Go
Water for Elephants
Twilght 5 (Not Midnight Sun)
Eat, pray, Love

People:

Marilyn Monroe
Audrey Hepburn
John Lennon
James Patterson
Dr. Seuss
Bob Marley
Chuck Palahniuk
Lady Gaga
Charlaine Harris
Eckhart Tolle
Pema Chodron
Paulo Coelho
Stephenie Meyer
Justin Bieber

* This list of words is based upon Alexa.com, current as of the original date of this blog, and will change.

After you attract people, you want to know where your audience might go from GR. The same four sites send each other the most amount of traffic, thus allowing you to create an attractive writer’s web.

From Goodreads:

22.67% go to Google, 12.17% go to Facebook, and 4.43% go to Yahoo.

From Google:

4.15% go to Facebook, 2.34% go to Yahoo, and 2.17% go to Youtube.

From Facebook:

7.86% go to Google, 5.36% go to Youtube, and 4.24% go to Yahoo.

From Yahoo:

8.44% go to Facebook, 7.62% go to Google, and 2.29% go to Youtube.

From Youtube:

13.52% go to Facebook, 9.98% go to Google, and 3.02% go to yahoo.

Also, consider writing reviews on Amazon. Based on studies of overall increases of traffic to Facebook the average amount of traffic to Facebook increases by about .936% . Aside from that, after Yahoo, GR sends the next most amount of traffic to Amazon (3.42%).

So, to spin a Writer’s web, set up an account on Goodreads using the above keywords to attract Google and Yahoo, stay active or set up an account on Facebook, post videos on Youtube, and write reviews on Amazon.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Last Friday, I blogged about a new feature on YouTube called Google Search Stories. I made a video of the most newsworthy stories through this week using this new feature.

Creating a search story is easy, it doesn’t take much time, and it’s a good way to promote you, your business, your idea, or anything you want to promote.  All you need to do is add six keywords, tell YouTube how you want to search (News, images, etc.), choose your music, and you’re ready to become a movie producer.

After you publish your video, you’ll receive an e-mail that gives you suggestions of you can do with your video and to promote your video.  Among those things you can add metadata, change the quality of the video, share it with friends and family, promote, and learn about the insights of the video.

Okay, so I based my video on the most popular searches in the U.S. throughout this last week.  I am the last person to cry, “The sky is falling”!   But let’s face it, recent world-wide events have left everyone, including scientists, baffled.  I just produce them as people search for them.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

I discovered something innovative that helps everyone tell their story in a visual way. If you haven’t heard of Google Search Stories by Youtube, it’s a simple tool that allows anyone to show the world how they used Google to find something meaningful in their life or in the world.

This first story is our world in review, according to Zeitgeist. These stories of 2010 include some of our world’s tragedies, accomplishments, and challenges. They reveal what brought us together, what tore us apart, whom we lost, and whom we gained.

This story shows the relationship between a little brother and his big sister. No one is good enough for my big sister, so I can identify with this story.

If you haven’t read On the Road by Jack Kerouac, I recommend you put it on your 2011 reading list. I believe there is a recent or soon to be released movie about it. For now, here’s Jack’s story in 60 seconds.

Go to Google Search Stories, click on the box in the middle of the video screen that says “Create Your Own” and your ready to write, record, and show the world your story.

Enjoy the rest of 2010!

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#media #social#networking #social#web#browser #conversational#web #flock#web#browser

So, you’ve read my blogs about the social Web browser Flock this week, but you’re not ready to give up your Internet browser.  No worries.  Neither am I.  Sometimes, I use Flock, and other times I don’t.  It depends on my mood, and what I need to get done.  If you want to give Flock a whirl, but you’re already set up with another Web browser, you can change your settings.

Click Flock in the tool bar, select preferences, select main, and type any site as your default site.  If you’re like me and you’re an Internet pack rat (You collect and save so many websites that you can’t remember them all), go to favorites, select organize favorites, select import HTML, and import your favorites from Firefox, Safari, or an HTML file.  If you want to export your favorites at a later time, select export HTML file.  You can also import your favorites by selecting File, clicking Import, and going through the steps.  If you go this second route you cannot import an HTML file.

Remember, if you blog, you can integrate your blog with Flock.  Open your Flock browser, click the key icon under the star, scroll down in the left sidebar to blogging, and select the blog service you us.  If you have a self-hosted blog, select Self-Hosted Blog and type your blog URL.  You can also use their photo and video uploader and many other features, so go ahead and try Flock today.

I’ll see you tomorrow.  I may discontinue my weekly “This week in social media,” but I’ll make sure to have something good for you.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Today, let’s talk about how Flock integrates search into the social Web experience.  In the top right corner of the My World tab, you will notice a search bar.  Next to the magnifying glass, you’ll notice the icon of the search engine it’s defaulted to and an arrow key.  You can use that arrow key to change the search engine you use to conduct your searches.

Of course, Google and Yahoo! are among those search engines, but maybe you want to search for the best deals on a new e-reader.  You can make eBay or Amazon your default search engine.  You can also set your default search engine to Wikipedia, Digg, and Twitter among others.

Continuing on in the My World tab, there are preset columns.  One of those columns is marked Twitter Search.  You can use that to create a stream for whichever keywords you want to search for on Twitter.  If you click on “Save Search,” that stream will become it’s own stream allowing you to watch multiple Twitter streams.  And if you want to see which terms are trending on Twitter, there’s a button that will tell you exactly that.

For those who want to search through various media, they can use the search bar in the Media Bar.  To open that click on the icon of the camera near the upper left corner of the browser.  A black bar will appear above the Web page you are on.  On the top left, you will see media streams that will allow you to choose which site you want to use to search for media.  You can also use the search bar on the right side of this screen for a similar function.

There’s more on search, so check out this cool vid.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#media #social#networking #social#web#browser #conversational#web

So, now that you’ve downloaded Flock, you need to know how to use it. Well, when you first open Flock, two tabs will appear: Flock – Getting started and My World.  The getting started tab lists the icons of nine social media services you can integrate your social web browser with.  As I mentioned yesterday, there are more, but these are the most popular ones (Notice Myspace is on there).  The My World tab shows four columns with your most recent visited sites, friends activity, Twitter activity with a search bar, favorite feeds, and favorite media.  If you want to change the positioning, you can do so just like you would change the position of a column in a Twitter desktop client.  If you’re not sure what that means, see my blog on The Battle of the Twitter Desktop Clients.  These are just the basics of using Flock.

Now, let’s start setting up Flock.  Once you choose which services out of the ‘stay connected’ services in the Getting started tab you want to integrate into your social Web browsing experience, you’ll notice a live stream of Tweets and/or updates from people you follow appears in the right column.  Without leaving this Web browser, you can respond and/or retweet them.  There are only three options of sites to connect with in your getting started tab, but you can connect with others by clicking on the key icon above the streams.  After you get them all set up, a green dot will appear to signify which ones are active.  To be able to see that side bar again just click on the icon of the person almost all of the way to the left.  Below that, you can select which of the sites you want to see your friends’ streams from, or you can select all.

There’s more on Flock.  For now, check out these vids.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#media #social#networking #conversational#web #social#web#browser

Maybe you want to get into this whole social media thing, but you’re not sure where to start.  Or maybe you’re way in over your head with all this conversational Web mumbo jumbo, and you don’t know how to make any sense of it.  Well, today I’m going to tell you about a tool that is going to make your life much easier.  It’s a social web browser called Flock.

I don’t use all the services Flock connects to, but I use enough to make it useful.  Now, before we get started, go ahead and download Flock.  Depending on what operating system you’re using, the steps to download it may differ.  It works on Word, Mac OS X, and Linux; and it’s available in several different languages.

Before I tell you how to use Flock, let me tell you what it connects with.  For those who want to stay connected with their friends, Flock integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Digg, and Myspace (yes, Myspace is still one of the leading social networking sites in the U.S.).  If you just want to find great photos and videos and post them, Flock integrates with YouTube, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, TinyPic, and Truveo.  For those who just want to keep up with their e-mail, Flock integrates with Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL.  And if you want to make your blogging easier, Flock integrates with Blogger, Blogsome, LiveJournal, Typepad, WordPress, and Xanga.  If you have a self-hosted blog, you can integrate that with Flock.

And you’re not limited, because this social web browser is an Internet browser.  You can use it just like you would any other browser, but it makes socializing on the conversational web seamless with cruising through the World Wide Web.

I’ll tell you more about Flock, tomorrow.  For now, check out this cool vid.

Stay social my friends,

Erick