Social Media Marketing Strategies

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In the world of social media, establishing, engaging, maintaining and growing your follower base is crucial for any type of success. We use a variety of social networking sites, tools, and platforms to establish and broadcast to our potential and existing follower base. Power in numbers often dictates and dominates the said outcomes. We work hard to establish a manageable and measurable following to listening ratio.

Notification emails are constantly bombarding our inboxes. I enjoy getting notification emails. It tells me right away that someone has expressed shared interests in me, and is now following me on one of the various social networking sites. Notifications serve as a type of positive reinforcement.

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I think people should also be notified when someone unsubscribes from them. My opinion of this, is not a widely shared one. When I mentioned this on FriendFeed, the majority of people who commented are against unfollower notifications. While I can see both sides of the debate, I feel this has opened up the door for misconceptions, because people only see the positive. Sometimes a reality check is not so bad. Realizing that there is not always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow can be a good thing. I also realize that feelings can be hurt by the receiving end of that notification. We are all grown adults. Would such a notification leave your feelings crushed? Maybe my threshold and tolerance level differs from most, but it would not bother me as much as others.

On FriendFeed, I recently started to manage and trim my subscription list. In the process of doing this, I found a few members had unsubscribed from my feed. I spent no longer then 10 seconds asking why and moved on. I even checked those members’ feeds to see if they still contributed any value to me. It did not affect me one way or another. Had they contributed  value or substance to me, I would reconsider not unsubscribing from them. Had I got an unfollow notification, I could of used this as feedback to increase the quality of my postings and learn what caused that individual to unfollow me. Then there are the people who play the numbers game. Their goal is to have the following/follower field even on both sides. Notifications would serve for them as an instant friends list degreaser.

People are going to find out eventually one way or another that you have unsubscribed from them.There are tools that have been created precisely just for this reason. Felix created the FriendVenn which allows you to find members who have unsubscribed from you on FriendFeed. For finding members on Twitter who have unsubscribed from you, there is a new tool in beta called Tweepletwak.

Here is Ed Kohler’s technologyevangelist.com take on the issue, using Twitter as the example.

While there are certainly people who could care less about this, working under the mindset of, “I’ll tweet about whatever I want and if people don’t want to follow me, that’s fine with me,” there are also people who do care about their followers more than themselves. These are people who are interested in building large, valuable, audiences who would appreciate knowing when they’re pissing people off with overly offensive tweets or burning out their followers with heavy tweet volumes. Unfollow notifications would provide this information.

If that is to harsh of a method, you can always utilize the new fake following feature on FriendFeed.

On the beta FriendFeed you can subscribe to someone, but not see their updates by removing them off your home feed. Using this method makes it appear like you are paying attention to them, when you are really not. I do not see the need for this. If you or the other person  is not contributing, commenting, sharing or liking in a two way fashion, then in effect you or they have already silently unsubscribed. Why fake it, pull the trigger already or go the silent kill route.

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Merlin Mann’s proposal for a pause button is an interesting idea.

Any application that lets you “friend,” “follow,” or otherwise observe another user should include a prominent (and silent) “PAUSE” button.

I think users of apps like Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, Delicious, and, yes, FriendFeed, would benefit from an easy and undramatic way to take a little break from a “friend” — without inducing the grand mal meltdown that “unfriending” causes the web’s more delicately-composed publishers.

What is the appropriate level of unfollowing someone, silent kill, notification emails, fake following, pause button?

Mike Fruchter fake following, followers, Friendfeed, Social Media

The bookmarking system I am referring to is liking something on FriendFeed. Liking an item not only serves as an encouraging vote for the content author, but it also serves as a great bookmarking tool.

In addition, the liking feature performs as a:

• Presence system
• Bookmarking system
• Recognition system

The river of content flows fast and furiously on FriendFeed. Often, I will miss friends’ postings because of this. The like feature has become a necessary bookmarking tool to keep track of everything. The like system on FriendFeed serves the same purpose as a bookmarking service. It allows you to archive and access stored data for consumption at a later point in time. Using the like system as a bookmarker, will considerably help you keep track of your friends’ updates.

For the new people on FriendFeed who don’t quite know their way around. You can access your likes and comment history on the right side of your feed under your selected services.

Your FriendFeed liking history also can be read via rss. At the very bottom of your FriendFeed likes page, you will see an rss icon. Simply copy that link into Google reader and access it anytime.

Your rss feed will look like this: http://friendfeed.com/fruchter/likes?format=atom

Replace fruchter with your user name. If you follow me on FriendFeed, feel free to add my likes feed into your Google Reader. FriendFeed gives you an rss option for just about everything you do on the site. It’s a great way to get the best of your FriendFeed in Google Reader.

The “liking” feature also functions as an indicator of who is online. It is sort of a FriendFeed presence system. This is the best method for me, to gauge who is active at any given time on FriendFeed. In this river, you need to stand out. Consistent liking and contributing will get your name out there. The more I see your name, the more I take notice. Expect me to visit your feed and like bookmark things of interest.

Mike Fruchter bookmarking system, Friendfeed, social bookmarking, Social Media

I posted a few days ago on FriendFeed about wanting to get more social with my bookmarking. I primarily was referring to using all the features of Diigo to their full extent. One of which is the ability to comment on bookmarks. Hutch Carpenter recently commented on some of my Diigo bookmarks. This is what partially spurred this experiment. I rarely take part in the social aspect of commenting on bookmarks on Diigo or any of the other bookmarking websites. With the advent of bookmarking toolbars and browser plugins, one never has to actually go to the services website to collaborate on there latest finds. For most of us, this is fine as we use these services as link repositories, and feel no need to converse about our bookmarks.

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Having the ability to share bookmarks on FriendFeed has truly put the social back into social bookmarking. To some, the true definition of social bookmarking is not only the opportunity to contribute, but to have the opportunity to comment and converse.I say to to each their own. Use social bookmarking as you see fit, at least your using it to suit a purpose. This is what makes FriendFeed such an invaluable tool for social bookmarking.

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The concept of this experiment into social bookmarking, discovery and conversation is similar to the one I did in June. This time, instead of sharing Google reader feeds, I created a room for the sharing of bookmarks only. This is a focus room, group open to anyone who wants to participate. This is a group where you and I can focus in on other members’ bookmarks. A random assortment of bookmarks where you never know what you will find. Bookmarks are often considered quality content, pertaining to whatever the subject matter may be. It should be interesting to see what is shared in this room. Bookmarks are very telling of a person’s mindset, education, and interests. Please feel free to contribute, converse, collaborate in this social bookmarking profiling experiment with me.

To contribute, add your your bookmarking rss feed to the comments on this blog, or on the FriendFeed thread. Bookmark link feeds can be from Delicious, Diggo or any bookmark service that gives you an rss feed of your links.

The Share your bookmarks FriendFeed room is located here.

I hope to collaborate with Yuvi at some point for an in depth statistical analysis of the data.

Mike Fruchter bookmarks, delicious, Diigo, Friendfeed, social bookmarking, Social Media

Created by Ray Grieselhuber, Gridjit uses the FriendFeed & Twitter API extensively to create an interactive social portal home page.  It visually organizes your FriendFeed and Twitter time lines into columns. It spreads out your time line by user, and shows that users’ most recent posts, in arrangeable blocks, distributed vertically across the grid.

This could be your new home page, social portal.

Gridjit Features:

• Content streams displayed in three vertical columns as opposed to one vertical column.
• Visualization of your conversations on a clean layout, with arrangeable blocks of content.
• Displays of the latest messages according to user, instead of in chronological order.
• Ability to like, comment and post directly to FriendFeed & Twitter.
• Drill through other people’s view on the web by clicking on their usernames and the people they “@” tag

Grid of people I currently follow on FriendFeed.

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This grid consists of the current content I’m sharing on FriendFeed.

In addition to liking and commenting, you can post directly to FriendFeed and Twitter without ever leaving the Gridjit portal

Gridjit is currently in the private alpha stage. With that being said, the services and  feature set is relatively small. I’m sure it will go grow in time. The site looks promising, and it will be very interesting watching how it evolves.

Request an invite code by visting Gridjit and submitting your email address.

Mike Fruchter api, Friendfeed, gridjit, Twitter, visual

In the quest towards becoming early adapters, we often sign up for anything and everything.  It seems every other day there are new services launching. Most of us feel we need to stake an early claim within that service just in case the it actually takes off. While a few make it, the majority fade away into web 2.0 oblivion.

It has become a requirement to establish an account on some of these services. It helps you further extend your personal brand, and it also gives you more visibility in the search engines. These are just two solid reasons. There is nothing to lose by establishing an account with all of these services, and everything to gain. At the very least, think of these sites as micro blogrolls. The profiles you establish with all of your correlating friends and your links to all of your web 2.0 services, is essentially what I call “passport blogrolling.” Most of these services only allow for one link, which is usually your homepage url. Having more link placement is great, but I’m just fine with having one solid link back to whatever my brand might be. From a marketing perspective, services that do not allow for some sort of profile creation with outbound links should be avoided.

I’m usually a sucker for any new shiny social media toy. I will usually sign up for anything with a web2.0 name and functionality. However, the repetitive task of finding your friends from the various social networking sites and adding them yet again to another new shiny service begins. Until OpenSocial is adapted and widely used, it’s not exactly an easy task finding all those friends spread across multiple networks. The lack of interoperability between the social networks, makes me even less inclined to spend the time searching for those friends. The ability to find and add friends via address lists from email accounts has become useless. I do not have the email address of more then half the people I interact with online.The quickest way I have found for finding my existing friends from sites such as FriendFeed, is to look for a popular friend and early adapter such as Louis Gray. Through his profile I can always find a good core of our mutual friends and begin to add them to my passport profile. There are a few hundred or so friends I can not locate. This is why now, more then ever, I will continue to network and invest my time in only one or two sites, and/or applications in their respective social spaces. Most of these new shiny toys in the end, end up becoming only shiny badges for blog sidebars.

Mike Fruchter passports, shiny toys, Social Media, Social Networking

I am always on the search for the latest and greatest social media applications. I am often too quick to sign up for a service based solely on hype. Perhaps most of us technophiles are an easy sell. Mention the word “beta” and you have a new instant subscriber, no questions asked. Whether or not I stick around with the service is a different story. Most of the beta applications and sites I sign up for are just for establishing a presence on that network. Often these sites will lack innovation, and never attract an active user base. Often these services stay in beta. They usually die a silent slow web 2.0 death. The ones that pull ahead and start to establish themselves will  continue to receive my support. An example of this is Toluu.

What is Streamulo.us?

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Quite simply put, Streamulo.us, which is currently in private pre-alpha (omega?) testing, is the aggregator for all your aggregators. It is the lifestream for your lifestreams. It’s the…ok, ok, you get it. It’s pretty darn amazing.

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Within a few hours it took on a life of it’s own. It was shared, bookmarked and discussed throughout FriendFeed and Twitter. Daniel took it a step further, adding an invite form! This was for all you early adapters to signup for “pre-alpha testing.”

Prominent blogger, Jennifer Van Grove was skeptical at first and nearly fell for it. Justin Korn fell for it as well and realized shorty after that something was not kosher. Hao Chen was blinded, but he quickly realized that something was not kosher. I must say thank you to Hao Chen for being a good sport, and because he also coined the saying ” I’ve been shiny-object-rolled.”

While this was a very interesting insight into the power of social media, it shows that a majority of us are always searching for that next new shiny toy. We all to often get caught up in the hype, and will believe anything that’s thrown at us with little or no source checking. Some times we need to sit back and take things in, let them marinate a bit, before rushing to be on the front lines.

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, Social Media, viral marketing

Last week I decided to stray from the herd on FriendFeed. My mission was to spend five days getting to know the people that I follow better. For five days I only commented, liked and shared content of individuals in my member circle. For the most part the experiment was a success. My mistake was only doing this for 5 days. In actuality I should of did it for 30 days. This would of exposed me to more members in my circle who are not active on FriendFeed every day. Five days limited me to only those who were on FF at the same time as me. Thirty days would have given me a broader experience.

It was an interesting five days. The first day was the most challenging. I spent the night before loading a fresh new Google reader account. This was filled with 80 rss feeds from members that are subscribed to me. These feeds are from members who I seldom interact or engage with on FriendFeed. The non stop, flowing river on FriendFeed is partly to blame.  The rest is due to their low activity on FriendFeed, or activities that simply do not interest me, such as streams of twitter or britekite broadcasts. I figured 80 blogs was enough to supplement my social consumption for 5 days. The problem I often ran into was finding new content. The majority of blogs were not regularly updated for days, even months. I’m partly to blame. I should have clearly stated I was looking for blogs with a higher update frequency. I often had to resort back to my, most recently analyzed trusted Google Reader to fill the void. That was easy because the majority of the content I already share on a daily basis comes from members that are in my member circle such as, Louis Gray, Steve Hodson, Corvida to name just a few.

Within the time frame I established of five days, I allowed myself to steer away from the herd, and roam into uncharted areas. I dug deep into this focus group of blogs. The Discovery phase was the fun part. I often found myself looking through pages and archives to find the gold nuggets I was looking for. The nugget had to shine or at the very least spark some sort of interest, and make a connection with me. I ended up finding and learning some great things about the people I follow, as much as one can through a blog or FriendFeed. Michael Nielsen explained to me, Why the world needs quantum mechanics. Bill Sodeman wrote on how to Fix the DNS security hole with OpenDNS. Andy Brudtkuhl had his Twitter account deleted for no apparent reason. Daynah Introduced me to the creative world of scrap booking. I also learned Mona has an obsession with bacon. These are just a few of the examples that I otherwise would not have discovered, and most likely would have floated by me in the river.

Discovering new blogs and content was one aspect of it. On FriendFeed I actively looked for members in my circles online, and took part in as many conversations as possible. My liking of content was more selective, and I geared it towards the members in my circle that are often overlooked. It’s amazing how much great content is hidden on feeds that are seldom seen on FriendFeed. I tried as much as possible to shine some light on these hidden treasures. Sharing through Google reader and using the FriendFeed Bookmarklet helped shine some light on these feeds. The power of foaf also works in mysterious ways. For the five days I turned off foaf, this slowed the river down for me, allowing me to focus on my member circle with more clarity and less disruption.

Overall for the 5 days it was a success. My level of engagement on FriendFeed was more enlightened and fulfilling. I also have found a few silent members that I need to make sure I follow a little more closely. If anything has come out of this little experiment, it’s the new faces that now appear on my radar. Not just a one time fly by anymore, but they now have become reoccurring blips on my screen.

Five days has given me limited results. I plan on keeping up with this experiment for at least 30 days for a more thorough analysis. Stay tuned.

Mike Fruchter Friendfeed, Social Media, Social Networking