Archive for March, 2008
March 31st, 2008
This post is a follow-up to my post last week entitled Top 10 Twitter conversationalists – What’s their motive? Where in the final paragraph I asked a number of questions:
- Do they have a vested interest in being seen as top social media communicators? Or are they just spreading the love?
- Why aren’t there more non-technology people conversing on Twitter and do they even know what Twitter is?
- And are they using Twitter correctly or is Twitter just fast becoming a self-promotional tool called Twitpromo ?
The post was well received with a number of bloggers from the list leaving some nice comments. End of subject.
FAST-FORWARD TO SATURDAY AFTERNOON
I follow around 90 people on Twitter, so not a great deal, but on Saturday my TwitterFox pop-up was on fire with one particularly well known blogger ” Scobleizer” – a well respected blogger.
In the space of no more than 40 minutes I had received 36 Tweets spread over 3 pages, bearing in mind each page holds a maximum of twenty tweets. So out of a possible 60 tweets, 36 were from the Scobleizer – over 50%.
So a little bit of maths tells me that 16,447 follow the Scobleizer and they all would have received the same 36 tweets in the same 40 minute time span. So in essence that’s a grand total of 592,092 tweets being disseminated from one user in 40 minutes.
While I hate to point the finger at one individual (it’s nothing personal Scobleizer!), this raises the point that if those same tweets had been distributed in the form of an email, in that amount of time, it would be called spam.
I know what you are going to say, “it was your choice to follow him” and ” Twitter is a totally different platform to email” – and you’d be right on both counts.
The reason I do follow these people is to learn and participate in a sector that I am very interested in, and then apply it into my PR/social media consultancy role. And one thing I have come to realise from this experience is that the Scobleizer is doing his own PR very well!
If you want to know more about the Scobleizer check this video out: Robert Scoble Insight Into Professional Online Publishing, Personal Branding, Social Media, and if you want to read some questions that Joe public would ask the Scoblizer, click here: What Would You Ask Robert Scoble?
Below are the screen grabs of the Scobleizer Tweets.
12/20 tweets were form Scobleizer
15/20
9/20
Best weekly social media and web 2.0 news round up for week ending 28th March 2008
March 28th, 2008
We have been scouring the blogosphere all week for the best social media and web 2.0-related news and resources. We have also added new links to the Liberate Media resource/research page,
Here is our weekly round-up:
- The Social Organization: Social Media Examples
- How to Breathe Life Back into Your Blog
- Analyze Your Web Traffic With Google Analytics: Video Tutorial
- Tweetburner: we allow you to keep track of what happens to the links in tweets shared with you, by you, by your friends and every other twitterer.
- Facebook Security Lapse Leaves Private Photos Exposed, Even Paris and Zuck’s
- Top 10 Twitter conversationalists – What’s their motive?
- What do you want from Social Media?
- The Ready, Fire, Aim, Reload Strategy for Social Media Success
- 38 Must Reads on Online Reputation Management
- Sound Investments For Your Website
- Social Media Advertising Will Happen As Expected
- What Are The Benefits of Podcasting?
- 12 social media tools to find people online!
- Twitter is The New Facebook
- LinkedIn Business Directory: It’s Just Like Facebook
- Is Twitter where bloggers go to die?
- ADAGE POWER150: THE UK BLOGS
- Why Does Your Search Traffic Suck? The 7 Most Likely Reasons
Please tune in next friday for the next weekly round up…
PR 2.0/social media – you gotta be in it to win it!
March 27th, 2008
Today i want to share a video with you from SSA PR in the U.S. It overviews the role of PR in social media, and offers some good points to encourage brands to participate in the online conversations that surround its product, service or even employees.
The nuggets from the video are:
- PR 2.0 can help you engage with online interaction and sharing.
- PR 2.0 can help you engage with people, when, where and how they want to be engaged.
- Social media is interactive – Bloggers and critics are commenting on your products and services as you read this text!
- Follow and understand the conversations, then engage in honest and open dialogue.
- Social media is STICKY – all your evidence can be shared and is searchable, so make sure your facts are accurate
12 social media tools to find people online!
March 26th, 2008
In our social media consultancy, we’re finding that target audiences for our clients are becoming more and more specific…sometimes down to a list of individuals. With the rise of social networks, it’s becoming possible to reach a group of individuals through PR, as opposed to the broad brush approach that is often applied to more traditional media.
As a result, we’ve spent some time refining the tools that we use to research particular individuals.
If you need to find the CEO of a particular company as a part of your research, or just want to find old friends and colleagues…check out the Liberate Media online people search tools!
XING -Find deals, employees, colleagues and jobs
Rapleaf – Lookup your information, Search for information about others, Manage your online privacy
PeopleFinders.com – The Web’s Largest People Search by Background Check, Public Records Search, and E-Mail Address
PeekYou – The Smartest People Search Online
Explode! – Search for interesting people
123people.com | Find everyone you (want to) know!
Pipl – The most comprehensive people search on the web
yoName – People search across social networks, blogs and more.
Wink People Search – Over 205,038,914 people on social networks and across the Web.
Spokeo – find your friends blogs and photos that you never knew they had
Upscoop – Import your email address book and discover which of your friends are on social networks…
The Internet Address Book – find, manage internet addresses all around the world
As always, any thoughts on the list or any tools we have missed please let us know.
All the above will go into our ongoing social media and web 2.0 research/resource page. Please check it out – it’s a little heavy now, but well worth the wait!
Top 10 Twitter conversationalists – What’s their motive?
March 25th, 2008
In my early morning RSS feed check I came across the Top 100 > Tweeterboard : Conversation Analytics for Twitter
As a consultant working within social media, i like to know who’s hot and who’s not, so when i looked at the list i was not surprised to see the usual suspects in there.
Then i asked myself why are these individuals at the top of the list and participating so heavily? Is it because they have some sort of social media relationship or vested interest, or are they just promoting themselves?
Or is it simply because they got on board early and have become authoritarians in a relatively new trend?
Top ten Twitter conversationalists: (scroll down to see my analysis on their relationship with the social media sector…)
Scobleizer
Location Half Moon Bay
Bio Tech geek blogger @ http://scobleizer.com
Name missrogue
Location
Bio handing out whuffie like it’s growin’ on trees
Name Chris Brogan
Location
Bio Social media type guy, passionate about communities
loiclemeur
Name Loic Le Meur
Location
Bio dreamy
Name Guy Kawasaki
Location United 2A Web http://twitter.alltop.com/
Bio Alltop, Garage, and Truemors
Name Wayne Sutton
Location
Bio New/Social Media Technology Evangelist, IT & Mobile Consultant
Name Mignon Fogarty
Location
Bio Podcaster, writer, fearless leader of the Quick and Dirty Tips network
shareski
Name Dean Shareski
Location
Bio likes soup and just got a haircut
jowyang
Name Jeremiah
Location
Bio Web Strategist | Currently employed as Senior Analyst, Social Computing, Forrester Research | How I use Twitter http://tinyurl.com/24lv65
Name OffBeatMammal
Location Redmond (WA) Web http://blog.offbeatmammal.com
Bio Englishman with an Australian accent living in the NW USA
Their connection with social media:
One look at the supporting biogs tells us that Scobleizer, Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Wayne Sutton, GrammarGirl, loiclemeur and jowyang are all well-known social media figures and have definite and obvious links within social media.
But what of missrogue, shareski, and OffBeatMammal? Names I hadn’t come across before.
missrouge
“I specialize in community marketing, which isn’t ‘building communities’, but rather, delighting and enchanting those people already part of your community – through product, communication and experience.”
shareski
“I specialise in the use of technology in the classroom. I hold a Masters of Education in Communications and Technology through the University of Saskatchewan. I also am a sessional lecturer for the University of Regina. I consider myself a digital learning specialist.
OffBeatMammal
“My blog Covers technology, toys and things that grab my attention. I’m a web developer (ASP and SQL) by trade and that tends to influence my outlook on life.”
My analysis:
The results are pretty conclusive…the people who converse within Twitter and are all at the top of the table in their chosen field, are indeed very clever technology and web 2.0-savvy people. Most have their fingers in the social media pie in some shape or form!
Some questions for you to think about:
Do they have a vested interest in being seen as top social media communicators? Or are they just spreading the love?
Why arent there many non-technology people conversing on Twitter and do they even know what Twitter is?
And are they using Twitter correctly or is Twitter just fast becoming a self-promotional tool called Twitpromo ?
-I’m just asking the questions, it’s up to you to decide!
Let me know your thoughts…
Best weekly social media and web 2.0 news round up for week ending 21st March 2008
March 21st, 2008
We have been scouring the blogosphere all week for the best social media and web 2.0-related news. Here is our weekly round-up:
We have also added new links to the Liberate Media resource/research page,
- 15 Free Social Media White Papers and Ebooks
- Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization
- Almost 7 Ways To Re-Optimize Your Posts
- 10-things-you-need-to-know-about-wordpress-25
- How To Compare Results on Different Search Engines
- The Web in Charts—Google vs. Microsoft-Yahoo vs. China
- StumbleUpon – Demographics and Returning Traffic Spikes
- Social Media Influencers: You Don Have to Be Popular to Be Influential
- Hosting your video is not always the best choice
- Blogs Are Public Documents – Bloggers and Commenters Beware
- Twitter Fan Wiki – This is the unofficial place where all twitter resources can be found.
- Is Blogging Good Search Engine Optimization
- 2 new studies show shifting attitudes towards social media
- How to have a Constant Stream of Blogging Ideas
- Secret Guide to Social Media in Large Organizations
- Tracking the Buzz: How to Monitor your Brand Effectively
- Strategies for Quickly Building an Audience with Social Media
- PR & “Edgework” Via Facebook
- The huge list of Facebook technology groups
- 7 social media website and their impact on seo
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Starbucks discovers customer conversations
March 20th, 2008
Love it or loathe it, everyone has an opinion on Starbucks. The fact is you can’t mention the word without somebody offering a tale of: ‘it used to be better when’…before being shouted down by one of Starbuck’s loyal followers. Well, now these people have a place to vent their grievances, make suggestions and then openly discuss and vote on them on My Starbucks idea, an online forum ala Dell ideastorm.
And who better to give an overview than the man who made Dell sit up and listen, Jeff Jarvis - who has written a powerful post on Starbuck’s entry into the world of social media. Jeff’s post is a beautiful early phase case study of how listening to your customers is both simple and massively rewarding for brands – or any organisation for that matter.
When put in these terms, it’s very difficult to argue with the power of social media. And you really can’t argue with the logic. Or as Jeff puts it:
“If auto companies had this five years ago, we’d all have told them to force their radio manufacturers to include a damned 39-cent plug so we could hook up our iPods. If airlines had it today, we’d tell them how to get out of their customer-service mess. Why does listening to your customers sound like a web 2.0 idea? It should be a business 1.0 necessity.”
I for one will be encouraging clients and anyone else who will listen to not only read Jeff’s post, as i think it’s one of the better social media overviews that I’ve read, but to follow the evolution of the Starbucks forum to see just how much simply listening to customer’s conversations will change the Starbucks offering.
The huge list of Facebook technology groups
March 19th, 2008
As a PR and social media consultancy, we always keep a close eye on our industry and today we have delved into the world of Facebook ‘technology’ groups.
We’ve listed the groups below, and the top five by members, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you can think of anymore that should be added, please drop us a comment:
Top 5 in terms of members:
34,549 members – Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs)
136,810 members – If Wikipedia Says It, It Must Be True
59,079 members – If this group reaches 4,294,967,296 it might ..
29,014 members – The Global Network Experiment
9,788 members – FWA (Favourite Website Awards) Friends
The huge list in full:
Girls in Tech
Girls in Tech was founded by technology marketing and PRs Adriana Gascoigne and LaurieAnne Lassek. GIT was born to further support girls in an industry that, traditionally, has been primarily, well, mostly full of guys.
181 members
First Tuesday London
First Tuesday is a professional networking forum for technology companies seeking venture capital.
303 members
Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs)
This group is for Individuals interested in being part of the next web business boom. Anyone can join, we especially encourage those technically gifted individuals: programmers, hackers, developers, designers, etc. who are interested in joining up with new startups.
34,549 members
If Wikipedia Says It, It Must Be True
Let’s face it, if Wikipedia says it’s so, then it’s irrefutable fact.
136,810 members
If this group reaches 4,294,967,296 it might ..
I’m assuming facebook uses unsigned 32-bit integers to represent the size of a group. If so, 2^32 = 4,294,967,296.
59,079 members
The Global Network Experiment
This is a group set up in order to collect quantitative data for my Dissertation. My Question is this: How has the expansion of online social networking affected peoples lifestyle and how they socialise?
29,014 members
FWA (Favourite Website Awards) Friends
FWA’s Facebook global gathering for everyone associated with FWA… winners, judges, site visitors etc.
9,788 members
The Web Designer Index
A group for all web designers and developers, graphic designers, web programmers, 3d animators, etc.
8,429 members
GNU / Linux users
If you use GNU/Linux at home, at work, or at all, join this group.
7,404 members
Apple iPhone
“Today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class, The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. The third is a breakthrough Internet communications device. These are not three separate devices, This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone. Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”
Steve Jobs
5,104 members
Apple
For people interested in Apple computers, Apple products, Apple culture, and just Apple in general.
4,792 members
Library 2.0 Interest Group
A place to connect with librarians, MLS students, LIS faculty, patrons, and anyone else interested in Library 2.0 concepts and services.
4,718 members
Social Tools All things social
social media, social networks, social commerce, social search, etc.
3,874 members
I have a Blackberry, I’m out of your league.
For those of us who are madly in love with our Crackberries which are obviously superior to any other phone in the known world.
3,281 members
My Mobile Is Sony Ericsson
Do YoU PoSsEs A SoNy ErCISsOn MoBiLe ? IsN’t GrEaT AnD LUxErIoUs ? Do YoU LoVe YoUr MoBiLe ? Do YoU CrY If SoMeThInG WrOnG GoEs WiTh It ? HoW Do YoU FeEl WhEn YoU DrOp It DoWn ? I CaN’T ImAgInE LiViNg WiThOuT It.
2,843 members
Addicted to Ebay
Help me I’m ADDICTED TO EBAY!!!!! 24/7 I think about what can I buy on ebay today and half the time I don’t even bid on anything. Now I’m addicted to posting stuff to sell. grrr….I am so addicted to ebay.
2,521 members
Adobe Flash Group
Official Group for anyone utilizing the Adobe Flash technology in their websites, games, web applications, or projects.
2,134 members
C#.Net
C# .NET Programming
2,065 members
Firefox Users
For people who use Firefox.
1,903 members
Official iPhone Users Group
This group is for folks who own an Actual iPhone (or the Virtual iPhone that’s available for FREE on Facebook). The focus of the group is for those that love the iPhone but want to have a direct line to the Apple iPhone team.
1,855 members
Ubuntu users
This is a group for users of the greatest Linux Distro around.
2,363 members
Blogging – if you’re not addicted, you should..
You didn’t want it, but now you have it! Blogging is becoming the internet norm, so here’s a Facebook group for internet fanatics who love to blog, want to get into blogging more, are addicted to blogging despite their best intents, or even just regularly read blogs.
219 members
The Blogging Network
This group is for people who either… 1) Love blogging about anything they are passionate about 2) Make money from blogging 3) Love networking with other bloggers.
58 members
Geeks Who Care
Geeks Who Care is a new organization dedicated to bringing together geeks from around the world who want to do something positive in their local community.
84 members
Barcelona Web2.0 Community
Barcelona Web2.0 Group on Facebook is a group of the who’s who of the Barcelona web 2.0 community. The purpose of this group is to gather all people in our industry and provide alerts to upcoming events and local news. We have our first personal meetup at 6th March in Paseig de Born! Come and join us if you like for Web2.0 Tapas Crawl.
14 members
Universidad 2.0
Grupo sobre Universidad 2.0
200 members
Barcelona Geeks
A bunch of geeks living and working in Barcelona who likes to hang out together.
62 members
Apple Students
This is a group for Mac lovers with discussion boards about apple products. 433,038 | members
Lunch 2.0
A social phenomenon referring to a migration of web 2.0 company employees to other offices around the Silicon Valley area; characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share food and ideas.
2,008 members
Communipedia
Communipedia is a hub helping you regain control using open standards.
131 members
leweb3
LeWeb3 Paris conference alumni and people interested in joining the 2007 edition on Dec 11/12.
1,207 members
List provided by Linqa
Social networking for niche businesses
March 18th, 2008
Today we’ve come across a great case study on YouTube, which demonstrates the marketing power of social media for niche businesses.
SudsMuffin is a specialist soap seller operating from one small shop in Canada. However, it’s managed to build an international customer base by being very active and visible within social networks.
In the owner’s words, “People have started to see us everywhere…it’s all about visibililty and how often people see you…This shows we are a real business, we’re real people, and not just a website.
The video says it all, but in summary, SudsMuffin has embraced:
- Discussion forums
- Facebook groups
- Flickr
- Blogging – SudsMuffin blog is here
- Etsy – a specialist site which it claims has been the most useful
If you have 10 minutes spare, this is an inspiring video to watch.
Twitter – definitely a FAN of this wiki
March 18th, 2008
Twitter is a great conversational tool, but even if you don’t use it to tell us “what you are doing” it’s still great for picking up useful nuggets of information or links.
I have just seen Drew B tweet about the Twitter fan wiki.
I have to say this resource is one of the most comprehensive that i have come across and will definitely go into the twitter section of our own Liberate research/resource map page.
Top tip: Follow well-known people in your sector on Twitter, you might learn a thing or two!
Thanks for sharing this Drew, at Liberate we also want to share the good stuff!