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Whaaa? How many people use social media?

By steve on March 4, 2010 in Uncategorized

This video created by the JESS3 team covers just about every stat of what happens on the web everyday. Still hard to believe some of these numbers. And who is the big winner in all of this?? Facebook it seems. And, remember to work our your GEO participation, NA is only one (small) piece of the pie. Hello Asia!

(which leads me to a future blog post, “Why dont people on Facebook like to mix business and personal?” I mean, honestly, how many of you really accept requests from coworkers and accept work event invites on fb? Or do yo push them off and instead ‘link’ into their network on Linkedin instead. The results would be interesting)

Great video again, and be sure to follow their work at @Jess3.

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Resolutions, everyone is doing it

By steve on January 5, 2010 in Uncategorized

Most common question asked in January, “Whats your new years resolution?”
My question to them is, “Why wait until Jan 1 to create a resolution?”

I like to treat January first more like the renewal of the checklist of items I would like to accomplish over time. Some of my goals have always been on the list, never budging, for example, my quest to stay Awesome. Now, we all know how awesome I am (if you don’t agree, just play along), and s0 is Barney from HIMYM, but it is hard work to stay awesome. And no one person is an expert at being awesome (except Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse).

This is also the case for social media, a lot of people do social media, but no one person is an expert. It is a field in which we are continually learning, weaving from web 2.0 and beyond. And lets talk about all those apps and communities we can use, a list growing daily. I recently read Sandy Carters post on her 10 social media resolutions and instantly thought to myself, “I want to do those 10 things too”. Now, knowing me, 10 may be too many, so here are my 5 professional “checklist items” for 2010:

1. Engage and collaborate more. This consists of many things including blogging, tweeting, commenting and sharing. I find that the more I am engaged, the more I learn not just from reading, but also from experiencing. I think a good benchmark for me will be 1 blog post and share at least 5 great items (posts, articles, toys, whatever) a week.

2. Build my professional relationships. I am going to work on growing out my professional networks (not just on LinkedIn) and be more engaged (see #1) by sharing experiences and learning.

3. Attend more conferences. How many webcasts and virtual events can you attend and really stay focused? We all multi-task, and sometimes it takes over and does not allow us to fully concentrate on what we are wanting to hear. Also, with the way technology is moving, events like SXSW and CES have become a tech-geek’s grand dream. I would much rather see it all in person than rad about it on twitter screens.

4. Get Creative again. Coming from an advertising/design background and now working mainly in marketing and social media, I have become less hands on with the design process. Might have even lost a little of my skills in Photoshop (ha), so it is time to pick it all back up and stay active. Loving all the viral video stuff for IBM recently, lets push the envelope. CSS and CMS may rule the web now, but we can still make it pretty.

5. Develop my ‘Personal Goal Plan’. To be a great professional, you need to have balance, “Work to live, dont live to work” as my dad likes to say. Jeremiah Owyang calls his personal goal “Operation Bluewater“. I have yet to fully define mine (pretty sure it consists of Aruba) but when I do, trust me, you will be notified.

So (raises glass of water), here is to a great year ahead.

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Twitter and all of it’s tools (kind of)

By steve on December 17, 2009 in Uncategorized

Most of us who use Twitter as a day-to-day tool know that there are a gazillion tools out there now. Some of them are cool, some weak, some actually work, some never did.

When I started using Twitter, I used to bookmark every app I came across and test it out, but even that eventually became overwhelming. I get a lot of questions on which ones are my fav’s or most used, so I compiled a list below of apps that I use regularly and how I use them (not limited to, but for the most part).

Most Used:

Twitter (twitter.com) – do I need to explain what this is? if so, please read my funny commercials post instead. Just joking… Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. (Wikipedia)

Tweetdeck (tweetdeck.com) – I run this app in the background during my days. I have groups and search columns set up to help me monitor specific conversations and topics. Also has an iPhone app that you can sync the profile up with. Most useful when trying to monitor a conversation topic or crisis while out of the office or it is the weekend.

Cotweet (cotweet.com) – use this app the to help me manage multiple twitter accounts simultaneously. Has integration with bitly for url shortening and building lists. Also great for managing multiple people and assigning tweets for responses, i.e. sales related questions. (another good app for this is Hootsuite)

Radian6 (radian6.com) – this is my monster social media monitoring app. Great for both short and long term (120 days history) trend analysis, segment breakdowns (type, region, language), and seeing all mentions of topic areas (keywords, hashtags) across all social communities and blogs. I use this app a lot to help me identify influencers within certain topic areas. Also has great reporting features and charts (all execs love colorful pictures) for me to send for presentations (execs also love to see everything on a PPT slide).

Exec tweets (exectweets.com) - a filter of all executives on Twitter. Cool to see what the big wigs are sayings. Some are very savvy, some as not even close. Great way to learn from mistakes and teach your own execs (because they are all asking… which brings me to a question, has anyone been mentoring an exec on twitter? what works, what doesn’t?)

tweetmeme (tweetmeme.com) – great new twitter aggregator by topics. create your own channels. i see a lot of events starting to do this now.

Some good social media / twitter reading:

Mashable twitter Guidebook (mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/) – the most comprehensive collection of twitter apps, stories, studies, and more

twitip (twitip.com) – all twitter topics, all the time

TwitScoop (twitscoop.com) – search and find what is buzzing on twitter (insightful tagline)

Social Times (socialtimes.com) – all things social

Blippr (blippr.com) – great newer tool for reviews, apps, sharing, etc all through social media communities

Other apps I randomly use or have found useful:

TwtPoll (twtpoll.com) – simple polling for Twitter
Twitpic (twitpic.com) – share photos easily. integrates with most mobile apps also. i like this app.
Tweeteffect (tweeteffect.com) – say something offensive? see how many people left, or maybe funny, how many came back?
We Follow (wefollow.com) – groups for topics
Seesmic (seesmic.com) – integration of Twitter, Facebook and everything in between
Roomatic (roomatic.com) – Twitter chatroom, have seen other apps similar as well on mashable
Mixero (mixero.com) – handle multiple twitter and facebook accounts. also have filtering.
TweetVolume (tweetvolume.com) – keyword comparisons, how do you compare?
Twitterholic (twitterholic.com) – check your rankings, feel important
Mr. Tweet (mrtweet.com) – your personal people finder, if you are similar. built into seesmic now also.
Tweepler (tweepler.com) – organize your tweeps, cool or uncool
Trendistic (trendistic.com) – nice quick view on keyword activity on twitter

Please share with me any others you think are useful.

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