Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Well folks it’s a new year and I wanted to kick it off properly. I put my heart and soul into this post, and I hope you get some value out of it. Below is an excerpt, please head over to louisgray.com to view the post in its full entirety.

Getting started with social media, whether for personal or professional use, requires learning the basic fundamentals. Social media is more than just creating a blog or Twitter account. The tools are great and give us big advantages, but they are simply extensions of how we engage and participate in social media, they are not the answers. The social in social media is all about the human element. This post touches upon 40 key elements to aid your success.

Adam Singer, from thefuturebuzz.com recently wrote a brilliant post that touched upon 5 reasons why you should learn about social media. He also tagged me for my thoughts on the subject, so in good spirit, I thought I would do a post on 5 reasons why businesses should learn and use social media for marketing. This is also a follow up for a post I did last week titled, social media marketing - who, what, when, where, why and how?

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1) The cost for entry is minimal.

At the very least, for the price of hosting and setting up a blog, you can begin to engage in social media marketing. You can spend dollars on buying banner advertisements, keyword placement on search engines and so forth. The cost barrier for entry is relatively low, compare that to the costly old-school, and increasingly ineffective ways of marketing such as print, TV, radio and so forth. Don’t get me wrong, blogging is just one aspect of your marketing strategy, but the essential tools you will also use such as Twitter, Facebook, and social bookmarking, for example, for the most part cost nothing to use. Your cost is time, time spent establishing and engaging your brand’s presence online. If you decided to retain a PR agency, or social media consultant, you obviously will incur higher costs. Doing it in-house, if you can, is the way to go. Specifically, if you are a small business and don’t have a large advertising budget. With the economy in it’s current state, even the larger corporations are feeling the brunt and they are slashing their advertising budgets in half, some are totally eliminating them all together and looking for more effective means of advertising. You can bet a lot of them are using their in-house staff to accomplish this.

2) Your current and potential customers are using it.

We are not living back in the 1996-1997 era, where the Internet to most people was AOL, and the way we accessed it was through 56K modems or lower. Fast forward ten going on eleven years, things have changed dramatically. It’s now not an option to be online, it’s a necessity. We are living in a connected digital state of mind, we are connected at all times thanks, to broadband. With that being said, people, your customer’s purchasing decisions are being influenced by social media, i.e blogs. Before making a purchasing decision, consumers nowadays are smartly using the Internet to find, compare, and research before ultimately spending their money. Have you looked around? There is a reason why your competitors, especially the ones in the know, are already using social media. There is no reason why you shouldn’t be as well.

3) Brand monitoring, listen, learn and react.

If your customers are online you can bet they are talking, positively or negatively. Social media is largely word of mouth marketing. Positive chatter can be used to your advantage and should be taken advantage of when possible. You should put forth the effort to respond to this chatter with gratitude. It never hurts to reward positive feedback, as it could only be beneficial to your brand. This can be done in a multitude of simple and effective ways. Negative chatter on the hand, can be detrimental and needs to be paid close attention to. On average, dissatisfied customers will tell somewhere between 13 and 20 other people how dissatisfied they were, and that’s offline we are talking about. Now could you imagine online? Learn how to use the tools to your advantage, and most importantly listen and react accordingly.

4) Compete on an even playing field.

Before the advent of social media, you needed Madison Ave dollars to compete with the big boys. Social media affords you the opportunity to compete on an even, level playing field. By using an effective social media and SEO strategy, you can achieve the same reach and success your competitors have no matter their size or bankroll. Social media actually gives you a leg up on your competition, if you are determined, motivated and willing to put the time into it.

5) Traditional websites are a thing of the past and just wont cut it anymore.

Do you have a killer four or five letter keyword dot com domain with plenty of type in traffic? Maybe so if you were lucky enough to buy it back in the early to mid 90’s. If you don’t, you will need other ways of generating traffic, and on the cheap. You could always spend advertising dollars on costly PPC campaigns. That’s one way of generating quality, targeted traffic, and by all means can be very effective. If you are on a budget or for that matter have no budget, social media marketing combined with organic SEO efforts is your only answer. Blogging, social networking sites, and Twitter are much more effective in getting the word out there and driving traffic as compared to a static stand alone html website. The ” if you build it they will come” mentality does not work on the Internet. You need as many hooks as possible to lure customers in. Remember this a tremendous ocean that you are fishing in. Social media marketing should be used in addition to your traditional website.

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Social Media like anything else requires commitment, time and patience. You must first pay your dues, learn and contribute, in order to get achievable results from it, of course all this depends on your objectives for using social media. If you’re new to this and going to be using it for any financial gain, either for yourself or a product your hawking, then read on. If you think creating accounts on every social networking site, and installing Twitter is the winning formula, you are wrong. The tools are only the facilitators of the message, as I have said countless times before. We must first learn to crawl before we can walk, so lets crawl, shall we..

Contribute:

Remember in order to get you must first give. Contribute as often and as much as you can. Contributing can be writing resourceful and useful blog posts, sharing and promoting other’s work. Do not hesitate to help people if they need assistance.

Comment:

Leave thoughtful and constructive comments as much as possible on other blogs. Don’t stop there, post comments on Facebook walls, FriendFeed, and Twitter. This promotes good practices in social media, and it also gives you an opportunity for exposure and link placement. This can lead into new networking opportunities and potential new friendships.

Conversation:

Find and participate in where the conversation is taking place. If you are using social media for marketing, this is very important. Find out where your current & potential customers are, and engage them. Establish a presence and contribute to the conversation, do not overpower and definitely do not spam, otherwise you will be shown the door rather quickly, and be exposed for a marketer, not a member of the community. We are giving and not getting at first, until we have earned the right to do so.

Community:

Just as in life we build a circle of friends based on our interests. Community is what social media is all about. Without the community, its just media, not social. Find the relevant communities and actively participate in them. Don’t expect to be accepted and welcomed right away, again this is earned.

Be proactive as much as possible:

Acting before a situation becomes a source of confrontation or crisis. That’s the definition of proactive. If friends solicit for help via Twitter or email, respond back in a timely fashion. If friends send you a gentle nudge, respond back. If friends need an extra Digg vote, don’t hesitate to help. When it becomes your time and a potential situation arises, you would hope that your network is there to catch you before you fall. Do onto others as you would want others to do onto you.

Share:

Remember one of the first things you learned as a kid? Play nice and share with your neighbors. Social media is all about getting the message out there. we do this in a variety of ways, one of which is sharing. Shine the spotlight onto others, if you expect the spotlight to be shined onto you. Sharing and self promotion is always a two-way street.

Do not promote yourself:

If you have a product to sell or are offering a service, keep those initiatives away from the communities, at least in the very beginning. If you jump into a community and your only goal is to hawk your wares, you will be seen as a marketer and not a contributor. I’m not saying it’s never okay to occasionally promote yourself, but there is a time and place. Again the right is earned, not given.

Build relationships:

Do not friend as many people as possible. All this builds is a list… Do build meaningful relationships with people. People you have taken a genuine interest in. It’s not about how many people you follow, but who you follow instead.

Image by Dyamasaki under Creative Commons License

I recently gave a consultation to a potential client regarding their social media strategies. This company, who shall remain nameless, is already a large, respected, and dominate leader in their space. They have been online just short of a year, made many acquisitions, and they have an active userbase, and community that continues to grow. Some of the problems they are suffering from, as most sites of their size and caliber, is content, too much of it. Content is king, no disputing that, but when you are producing the sheer amount of it that this company is, it can lead to confusion for the consumer. We talked about better ways to prioritize their content, and organize it in such a way so that it was not an overwhelming experience for their users. We also spoke about their current social media initiatives, what they are doing right, wrong, and not doing at all. Lastly, I touched on user retention, ways to improve site usability and expanded on different avenues for monetizing. These are the different variables that I look at and factor in when working with a client to help achieve their desired goals and results. Marketing is just one variable , but the second being the consumer interaction with the website. What happens when a potential customer lands on your site needs to be looked at very carefully. How long they stay on your site, how well they are able to navigate the site, not find or find the relevant content/products, interact, and when required too, make purchases.

This post reflects on some of my observations and suggestions to the client. I touch upon a multitude of areas. I have also added additional thoughts and pointers, some may be relevant to you, some may not. I hope you will pull away something from this and perhaps use it and learn from it.

Collect current and potential users email addresses:

• Capture users email addresses (if system is not in place). Implement an opt-in mailing list solution. Do I really need to further expand on the benefits of this?

Break down the walls:

• Make your most prominent content offerings visible on the front page. Do not bury it in sub-directories of parent links and drop down menus. Give your core offerings high visibility at the front door.

Provide a map:

• Create a sitemap for your content. If I’m lost on your site, throw me a lifeline.

Focus on the expert layer:

• This particular company has done  quite a few blog acquisitions, in addition has thousands of site members who publish blogs on the site. Arriving at the site, the distinction between expert, and user generated content was hard to distinguish. With some minor graphical enhancements, that problem is easy solved. Think about how you can incorporate expert layers into your product marketing. Think about the ways you can build and achieve brand credibility. Ask experts to contribute blog posts, video posts, anything that sheds light positively on your product and brand. This might cost you a few bucks, but always make sure your motives are transparent.

Don’t guess, just ask:

• Solicit site feedback. Create a site usability survey.  Improving site features and functionality comes down to data. Create a customer feedback survey, nothing too lengthy. Let the users of the site speak to you in their own words. Ask them direct questions, what they would like to see more of, less of, and so on. Reward them for participating in the survey, as this will also be used to get them to participate. By participating they could be entered in a drawing to win free shirts, hats, you get the picture.

Optimize for Mobile:

• Create a mobile version of your site, if one is not in place. There are 405 million mobile internet users worldwide, according to Internet research firm eMarketer, and within four years this number is expected to double.

Create outposts. Go where the existing and potential customer base is and establish a presence.

• Establishing a Twitter account is a necessity, and should be a priority. For this particular company I advised them to create one main Twitter account for <insert site name here>, and then gradually experiment with the in-house blogs. The main <insert site name here> Twitter account will be the megaphone for the entire site, so multiple accounts may not be necessary. Create Twitter accounts for the leading branded blogs on the site. Let the in-house bloggers post on them. They will broadcast on these accounts, staff will need to have minimal involvement, except monitoring the accounts from time to time. Let the bloggers create and bring their own followers to the site.

• Use Twitter for brand monitoring.Twitter needs to be paid special attention to. Consumers are voicing their frustrations in growing numbers on Twitter, and businesses are listening. If something is being mentioned on Twitter, it should be relativity easy to track it down using a basic Twitter search. You can also narrow your results down further using search operators or advanced search. Twitter search pages also gives you an RSS feed for the search term results. You can add the RSS feeds to your watch lists in Google Reader.

• Establish a Facebook account only for <insert site name here>. Create a Facebook group for <insert site name here>. Updating will require minimal staff involvement, with the exception of the group. RSS and social content aggregators I.E FriendFeed, Twitter updates etc will update the Facebook profile automatically. Staff can go in from time to time to react to comments, post new links, etc. At the very least this account is to be used for an outpost, any added efforts is certainly a plus.

• Establish a MySpace account and set up the profile with all the relevant news and links pointing back to <insert site name here>. Blog posts and featured content should be imported and posted often. Encourage following on the all the social networking accounts. Remember both of these sites are in international markets, are you targeting them?

• Establish a YouTube channel and other video platforms. This is core if you are creating original video. While we don’t want to drive too much traffic away from <insert site name here>, these sites serve a few purposes, one is brand exposure, the second is for SEO. User generated content and the sites that display it tend to rank higher in search engines. The same is true for social networking sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn Twitter etc. These are authoritative links, accounts and links from these sites are weighted much higher and as a result rank higher in search.

• Give people the tools to extend your brand outwards across all the social networks. Consider developing widgets, Facebook applications, Mashups, API’s. How many people are using iGoogle nowadays? You get the picture.

• Promote the social networking site accounts with badges/buttons (nice eye candy on <insert site name here>). Encourage following and follow everyone back.

User generated content:

• Give your users the ability to import RSS, flickr feeds, amazon wish lists, Twitter statuses, bookmarks and so forth. This of course depends on your product. This particular company has an extensive amount of user generated content, such as user created blogs, video, and pictures. What I wanted to see was more of alifestreaming element for their users.

• As I mentioned this company has a tremendous amount of user generated blog content. I advised them to create a step by step primer for creating blog posts. In additon to steps for promoting the blogs. The more we can arm the users with information and tools for promotion, the more traffic it will drive back to <insert site name here> in the long term. A weekly series could be implemented by an expert for blogging tips. Since blog content plays a big role on the site, we are empowering the users to become in effect citizen journalists. As long as we teach them and provide the tools, the platform will always be <insert site name here>.

• Empower, and encourage the users to use and link to the content they created on <insert site name here>, on their other social networking sites. Widgets play a big part of this as well. We need to teach the users what RSS is, and how it will benefit their blog promotion.

That’s it for this one. You can keep up with some of my more current posts on louisgray.com at the links below.

• 10 Pointers for Generating Traffic to Your Blog
• Social Media Marketing - Who, What, When, Where, Why and How?
• WebNotes Makes Annotating the Web Easy

Another week has ended, and it’s a new month. So it’s time to get caught up if you haven’t been here in a while.

This is the weekly recap of posts I have written. Please visit the hyperlinks to read the posts in their full entirety.

1) I shine the spotlight on 10 FriendFeed members to follow for the month of December.

2) Google Friend Connect publicly launched. This post is a brief tutorial on the features and the implementation of Friend Connect.

3) I touch upon 15 useful Google App Engine Applications.

4) I talk a little about content syndication, and how far we’ve come.

5) This post touches on 25 different uses for FriendFeed.

6) I expand on the importance of how sharing and self promotion is always a two-way street.

That’s enough of about me.  Here are a few more solid posts that I really enjoyed, from louisgray.com and across the web.

1) Louis gives us an excellent review of PeopleBrowsr, a new visual social media dashboard.

2) Jesse Stay (Exclusive) interviews the  woman behind @BritneySpears on Twitter.

3) Rob Diana talks a little about how blogging’s future is both consolidating and expanding.

4) Adam Singer gives us 5 Reasons why you should learn about social media.

5) Kyle Lacy does a great video post on word of mouth marketing, then and now.

6) GrowMap proposes a new top ten FriendFeed friends challenge.

7) Eric Berlin advises to follow these 10 people on FriendFeed, and increase your social media powers.

8 ) Chris Brogan does an excellent video post on the importance of play and work.

9) Jason Falls talks about 10 promotional mistakes that new bloggers tend to make.

Louis Gray handed me the keys to his blog last week, so I have been having a little fun over there lately.

This is the weekly recap of posts I have written . Please visit the hyperlinks to read the posts in their full entirety.

1. SEO is still relevant, I touch on 15 tips for improving search engine visibility.
2. We all love Twitter, here are 15 tools to add to your Twitter toolbox.
3. My observations on FriendFeed list organization, 60 days in.

Why stop there?  Here are a few more solid posts that I really enjoyed.

1. Daniel Pritchett, reveals the 15 secrets of FriendFeed’s power users.
2. Louis asks, if anybody cares about non-blog commenting anymore?
3. Corvida Raven is wondering if social media is keeping you out of touch with reality?
4. Rob Diana explains that Web apps need to keep it simple for success.
5. Louis informs us that SocialToo launches social surveys for polling via Twitter.

This post outlines some of the best and worst practices in social media marketing. Most of these are common sense, but they are key components for an effective social media marketing strategy.

Best Practices:

• Consistency: This should be applied to every area of your involvement in social media.  All of your online profiles should share the same information. Make sure to use the same user names. If possible, use the same profile pictures (if applicable), logos and contact info.  Maintain a recognizable streamlined presence across all social networks, professional and personal. Be consistent with your blogging updates, marketing campaigns, product updates, improving website usability and responding to customer feedback, good or bad.

• Listening: You  need to  listen on a consistent basis for customer chatter. If people are talking, it’s usually a negative. Satisfied customers remain quiet for the most part, as there is nothing to gripe about.  Satisfied customers, on occasion, will leave testimonials and reviews. Happy customers are loyal endorsers of your brand, and it’s very important to keep these people happy.

• Transparency: People relate to people, plain and simple.  Show the human side of your brand.  Create an experience and tell a story. Put real faces and stories behind the message you are trying to get across.  Most of all be authentic. If faults are made, acknowledge them.

• Handing over the keys: Give someone else the spotlight. Louis Gray and Chris Brogan are two examples  of this.  Both of these guys constantly turn their blogs over to smaller lesser known voices for guest posts. Let others shine when the chance presents itself. With millions of voices in the blogosphere, unless you have an edge, you probably wont be heard. I firmly live by, and believe the old saying “do onto others as others do on to you.”

• Promote others first: There is a multitude of ways to do this.  If you have the platform and audience, hand over the keys to your blog. Share good content via Google Reader, Digg or Stumble it. These are the easiest ways. If you are blogging about a particular subject, make sure to reference and link to the source. Bloggers love the “link love”, I know I do. It’s a sense of accomplishment and acknowledgment. Linking to others is also very positive for search engine relevancy and rankings.

Worst Practices:

• Don’t Ignore: Negative criticism or customer complaints should receive some kind of response. Saying nothing can seal your fate on the web. Word of mouth, especially negative, on the web spreads quickly.

• No drive bys: Drive by spamming is a major no no.  People will see it for what it is, spam. Do you want your brand recognized as spammers who are just trying to make a quick buck?

• Lie, cheat and deceive: Don’t create fake profiles and or personas. Creating a fake image with the goal of marketing will eventually backfire. Fakes are always found out, it will just take a matter of time.

• Don’t player hate, but participate:  Sometimes saying nothing is better then something. What I mean by this is, dont trash talk your competition.  Listen and learn instead.

These are just a few examples off the top of my head.  What are your best practices?  What’s the worst you have observed?

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If you are going to start using social media, you should at least have an understanding of what it’s about. Social media is not about the tools, the tools are only a facilitator.

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Starting with the basics. Roll your sleeves up, get dirty and stake your claim:

1) Register your domain name, preferably a dot com extension. It’s also a good idea to register any variations and extensions of your domain name. Do it sooner rather than later, or you might be negotiating with a domain squatter, paying a premium in the future, rather than pennies in the present.

2) Find a good, reliable web host, and do your homework. Ask for referrals. If you are just starting out, it’s okay and economical to go with the cheap shared hosting plan, I.E Godaddy. Expect to upgrade to a mid level or higher hosting package within 90 days or less.

3) Install a blogging platform, preferably Wordpress. Find and install the necessary plugins, themes and widgets. Installing a caching-system plugin is also a good idea. You need to optimize not only just for search engines, but also page loading time. Find a simple theme and build around it. KISS is always a good rule of thumb.

4) Customize  your permalink structure immediately. By default, WordPress uses web URLs which have question marks and lots of numbers in them. This will severely limit the amount of traffic you will see from search engines. Change your permalink formatting to the following markup: (day and name) yourblog.com/blog/2008/10/25/sample-post/

5) Create an about page. Tell people what your blog is about, and most importantly what you’re about. Put a nice head shot of yourself on the about or profile page. Make sure to include any awards or recognition that may be relevant about the author.  Give people an email address to email you, rather than an online form. Add your primary social networking badges and urls on your contact page. Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter should be a starting point. I would also create a blogroll. It can be on your sidebar, or a separate page, but it should exist somewhere on your blog.

6) Install analytic software, such as Google Analytics. It’s a good idea to have at least two stats packages installed and running. All analytic software is not created equal, they all have the same purpose, but vary in their reporting and tracking methods. Results will vary to an extent, comparison of multiple data sources is vital.

7) Give people the tools to promote your content.  Social promotional buttons make it easy for your visitors to Digg, StumbleUpon, and share your content. Bring the good word back to your blog. For instance, if you’re active on FriendFeed you should install the FriendFeed comments and likes plugin on your blog.

8 ) Establish a Feedburner account. Provide easy visibility for new RSS subscribers, use text links in addition to graphics to promote your RSS feed  You can also add an email subscription form on your site. People who do not use feed readers, will be emailed your latest postings.

9) Focus and be consistent with your blogging. Most professional bloggers get paid per post. Don’t be intimidated or feel forced to compete with them. Work at your own pace. Quality takes time, plain and simple.

10) Build as many social passports as possible. Passports are basically the profiles that you build on the various social platforms. These profiles all should be consistent, and most importantly point back to your blog or website. The goal is to create as much organic link juice as possible.  The core target is search engines. Consistently update these profiles, and use tools such as ping.fm to update them.

11) Leave thoughtful and constructive comments as much as possible on other blogs. Don’t stop there, post comments on Facebook walls, FriendFeed, and Twitter. This promotes good practices in social media, and it also gives you an opportunity for exposure and link placement. This can lead into  new networking opportunities and potential new friendships.

12) Establish and actively use your Google Reader account. This perhaps is the most powerful tool in any social media arsenal besides a blog or microblogging platform, such as Twitter. I will outline more in detail as we get further down the list.

13) Find the top 50 blogs in your space, and subscribe to their RSS feeds in Google Reader. Consistently be on the lookout for new blogs, and the voices behind them.

14) At this point you should already have a Twitter account. If not, establish one.  If your objective is personal branding, your Twitter username should be your name. Otherwise you could brand your twitter username the same name as your blog. Remember consistency with all your profiles is key.

15) Work smarter not harder. Use the tools to help you manage and stay ahead of the pack.

16) Listen to what’s being said about you.  Create Google alerts to monitor for positive or negative chatter.

17) Link out as often as possible when the circumstances permit it. If you are writing a post on a related subject, always look for a chance to reference a fellow bloggers work. This is not only good blogging etiquette, but will also put you on that persons radar in a positive way.

18) Build relationships with key influencers in all the communities and platforms that you participate on. Relationships take time to develop and grow in time.  One good example on how to do this, is listed above at #17.

19) The material that you create should be something that people want to share. For the most part, it should be relevant to your networks’ interests. Create newsworthy, thoughtful, intelligent content that has immediate usefulness.

20) Become an expert in your field.  Try to align and surround yourself with the best tools, and people to accomplish this. It’s all about networking, networking and networking. Take it offline when permitting. Organize local social media meetups and tweetups. Make it an effort to attend trade shows when possible.

21) Don’t knock it until you tried it at least once.  Be open to trying new multimedia applications that enable self promotion, audience engagement, brand retention and participation. Experiment with podcasting, creating video, slide shows, or creating and posting any type of original user generated content.

22) Solicit not only your peers for feedback, but your audience. Ask your readers to submit feedback for site improvements, ideas on new topics to blog about, follow ups on previous topics, participation in polls etc.

23) Good content speaks for itself, and is recognized. Let others promote your content and only promote your best stuff.  Ask your twitter followers to spread the word by re-tweeting good posts. Be sure to do the same for others.

24) Promote others, even more than you promote yourself. Practice this, and it will come back to you tenfold.

25) Use Google Reader to share and promote your own work, as well as your  core networks content. Don’t limit yourself, share complete strangers work too. Good content needs to be rewarded, recognized and distributed through the appropriate channels and relevant communities.

26) Hopefully you will already have at least one active social bookmarking account established.  Delicious, Diigo, Ma.gnolia, any of these will do. Open accounts on all three of these services.  Make Diigo your primary account for bookmarking. By doing this, you can use a Diigo feature that allows you to bookmark to all three services simultaneously.

27) Establish accounts on Stumbleupon, and any social news sites such as Digg, Reddit and Mixx.

28) In addition to sharing content with Google Reader, be sure to StumbleUpon, good blogs, or websites.  StumbleUpon is key for traffic and exposure.  You can expect a large spike in traffic initially, then gradually it tapers off within a few days. You can expect long term traffic from SU, albeit in dribs and drabs.

29) Tag your media, especially blog posts and bookmarks.  Social bookmarking, video and image sharing sites also serve as search engines, therefore tag accordingly. The traffic comes in dribs and drabs, but it’s targeted traffic nonetheless. Every click counts. Same applies to any other forms of media you create, including videos you publish on Youtube, Vimeo. Images you publish on Flickr, podcasts, etc.

30) Blog postings, bookmarks, Flickr images and so forth should all be imported into a social content aggregation site, such as FriendFeed.com

31) Be omnipresent on all the networks. I should be able to find out about your latest happenings, and or statuses if I am browsing your Facebook profile, Linked profile, Twitter or FriendFeed stream.

32) Use the cloud to your benefit. Work more efficiently by using online applications to manage and organize the workload.

33) Take full advantage of all the Google services that are offered. Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Notebook, Google Reader and so forth. These services are all web based, and offer sharing and group collaborating features.  You can also import the data publicly via RSS, and an html page via your Google Reader shared link blog. Bottom line is, most of your Google data is easily accessible, manageable and integrateable with the web.

34) It can take months even years to see successes.  Stay consistent and focused with your social media strategy. Adapt when necessary, and do not be afraid to take calculated risks.

35) Do not ignore the simple concept of “transparency.” Personalize your brand. People relate to people much more effectively than they can a logo or commoditized brand.

Any additional thoughts?

Image by mr.beaver under Creative Commons license.

When it comes to microblogging, the first word that pops into everyone’s mind is Twitter. Twitter will always be the heavyweight simply because they were first.  Twitter should be just one of your primary microblogging tools. We all know what happens when we keep all our eggs in one basket. Listed below are six great twitter alternatives. These should be used in combination with Twitter.  One more thing to keep in mind is updating. You can use web based apps to update all your microblogging profiles in one shot. There are also Adobe Air/desktop applications such as Posty that work just as well.

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1) Identi.ca

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Identi.ca was launched in July of this year. It gained traction quickly, partially due to it being the first open-source Twitter clone.  It came on the scene at a time when Twitter’s service suffered from extensive outages and service limitations. Twitter users flocked in droves looking for a stable alternative.

Features:

• 140 characters  limitation
• Open ID
• SMS capabilities
• (XMPP based) instant messaging client IM updates
• Crossposting to Twitter
• Option to automatically follow back new subscribers
• Adobe AIR/various desktop applications

It’s a win win situation for developers and end users:

Identi.ca is open-source, open data, has an API, and can be federated.

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2) Rejaw

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Rejaw is an interesting microblogging platform. Unlike Twitter, you are not bound by 140 chars, you have a spacious 1,000 character limit. The ability to post images and video is a major plus. The user interface is simple, easy on the eyes, and easy to use. I particularly like the use of big fonts and big text implemented on the site. It’s a definite welcome for the visually impaired.

Features:

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• 1,000 characters limit messaging
• Ability to post videos and images
• Threaded conversations
• Permalinks
• Guests can comment on threads, no registration is necessary.
• API for developers

3) Pownce

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Pownce is the creation of Digg founder, Kevin Rose. It’s another web based instant messaging system aka microblogging application with some distinct features. The character limitation is unlimited which gives you a lot of freedom to ramble. You can post messages, events and even share files.  Grouping of friends is a great collaborative feature built into the service.

Features:

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• No character limitations
• Ability to post videos and images
• Grouping
• Share files
• Adobe AIR/desktop applications
• API for developers

4) Jaiku

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Jaiku is  currently a Google property, since Google acquired them in Oct of 2007. It’s very comparable to twitter, with a 140 character limit. It offers a lifestreaming element by allowing you to add your blog, photos, and other RSS or Atom feeds to your stream.

Features:

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• 140 character  limitation
• SMS capabilities
• (XMPP based) instant messaging client IM updates
• lifestreaming capabilities
  
• Adobe AIR/desktop applications
• API for developers

5) Tumblr

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Tumblr is a microblogging platform abundant in features.  It is highly customizable and is suitable for short form blog posting. There is no commenting system, but a third party application such as Disqus can be implemented.  Along with posting messages, you can also post and share an assortment of media.  You also have the ability to use  a custom domain name. Overall, Tumblr blogs are easy to set up, maintain and should suit your basic microblogging needs, with a ton of bells and whistles.

Features:

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• No character limitations
• Ability to post audio, videos and images
• Customizable
• Email posting
• Bookmarklet posting
• IM updates via AOL Instant Messenger.
• lifestreaming capabilities
• RSS output feed
• Adobe AIR/desktop applications
• API for developers

6) Kwippy—

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Kwippy started out as an IM status aggregator. It has since evolved into a microblogging platform. It’s similar to Twitter with more of an emphasis on IM updating and aggregating. It currently lacks any mobile options. There is also an API, which I’m not sure has been publicly released yet.

Features:

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• No character limitations
• Convenient commenting on status messages
• Instant messaging updates via Gtalk or Yahoo Messenger
• Facebook statuses intergration
• Threaded discussions
• Permalinks
• RSS output feed

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I have been traversing on the Internet for a little over a decade now. Throughout the years I have had a number of personal blogs on various blogging platforms that have come and gone. I have never taken any of these blogs seriously, nor have I updated with any frequency, because it was just that, a personal blog for the occasional journal thought and pictures from family outings. I decided earlier this year that I have no use for a personal blog anymore. My substitute is a private Twitter and Picasa account serving as a repository for all things personal.

The start of something:

In June of this year, I put my domain name online and started a blog. This was, and is going to be my creative outlet, a way for me to use a megaphone to broadcast my voice in the biggest stadium of them all, the Internet. My blog is about how I use social media, the technologies behind social media and how business and individuals can benefit from them. While some of my posts have been off subject, most of them have been about social content aggregation, more specifically FriendFeed. It’s no surprise to anyone reading this blog how much I love and support FriendFeed and it’s community. This blog has also provided me an outlet for my social media experiments, epiphanies, explorations and allowing me to “pay it forward ” on a virtual global scale.

Through FriendFeed, I have networked and made numerous new meaningful connections and relationships. FriendFeed has provided me a platform for my own personal growth, and the growth of others as well.

I guess by the definition of this post, I would be considered a blogger.I don’t have a background in Journalism, and don’t claim or consider myself to be a professional blogger. I’m just an average Joe who writes a few times a month about my thoughts on how we use social media. I consider the people who do this day in and day out to be the “real bloggers”. People like Sarah Perez, Steven Hodson, Svetlana Gladkova, Duncan Riley, Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins are the definition of professional blogger. The individuals I mentioned are just a handful of the people in the industry that I respect tremendously and that inspire me.

Then there is Louis Gray. It’s quite clear the admiration and respect I, and many others have for him. This man is taking on an iconic status, and is in a league of his own. Louis has blazed trails for himself and many others, including myself. Louis is the type of person that does onto others as others do onto him. Louis repeatedly gives the little person a chance to shine. He is not one to steal the spotlight. Louis was one of the first people I started to follow and get to know on FriendFeed. He was the core inspiration for me starting to blog. A turning point for me was when Louis gave my blog a notable mention in a thread titled, “Five Blogs For June on Your Summer Reading List.” This was, in a way my 15 minutes of fame. It was totally unexpected, and it caught me off guard. I was never prepared, at least in my mind, to be catapulted into the spotlight. Looking back, I see it as sign. Since then things in my life have not been the same. Louis has given me the ball, now it’s my turn to run with it as far as I can. Hopefully I can score a touchdown. Louis has also exposed me to countless new friends and networking opportunities. While I never met Louis in person, I look forward to the occasion sometime in the future.  So to Louis, I say thank you very much for all that you have done for me, I’m truly grateful.

State of the Blog: 06/01/2008 - 10/01/2008

• Total posts published to date, including this post: 50
• Total comments to date: 275
• FeedBurner subscribers: 188
• MyBlogLog Members: 27
• Twitter Followers:183
• FriendFeed Followers:611

Report: michaelfruchter.com
Report Name:Pageviews Graph
Date Range: 06/01/2008 - 10/01/2008

• 6/2008 28,288
• 7/2008 35,864
• 8/2008 42,127
• 9/2008 63,706

Most Popular Posts:

• 20 people you should follow on FriendFeed - Pageviews 3,904
• 10 people you should follow on Friendfeed - Pageviews 3,177
• My A,B,C’s of FriendFeed - Pageviews 3,177
• Paying it forward on FriendFeed - Pageviews 2,319
• 10 tools for listening in social media. - Pageviews 2,130

In closing:

I’m very optimistic about the future. I now have more of a clear head, and for the first time, focus. This blog will continue to be my outlet, and hopefully my road for new beginnings. I would also like to say thank you to everyone who has commented and subscribed to this blog. I would also like to say thank you to everyone who has ever shared, bookmarked or Twittered any of my posts. You are the reason why I continue to do this. Reflecting back on the last 120 days has really put a lot of things into perspective for me. It’s been a fast and wild learning experience. One that I have learned from and continue to do so.