Getting to Know the Giants of Social Media

By 2012 more than 1 billion people are expected to be online through blogs, social networks or photo/video sharing services. Social media is a great equalizer. Ordinary people are talking to each other and the businesses they patronize about what is important to them. Every day new sites are launched to enable people to broaden their conversations. Still, many stick with the sites they know—the giants of the social networking scene.

MySpace started out as the exclusive domain of young people, and after tying to become a mainstream site, went back to its roots. MySpace was the first social network to make the word “friends” (meaning contacts) part of our everyday language. While MySpace members aren’t as old or sophisticated as Facebook users, they function seamlessly in their own piece of cyber space. If you are an adult who insists on being on MySpace, ask your teenager to help you.

Facebook is big—the biggest—social networking site. Forty percent of its members are over thirty-five. Facebook offers personal profiles, calendars, movie reviews, photos, groups for every conceivable interest, targeted advertising, demographic profiling, and multiple ways to keep in touch. Members use Facebook to keep up with friends and friends of friends. It now also provides “fan pages” for setting up professional and businesses profiles.

LinkedIn is the number one social network for businesspeople and professionals. The site works on the principle of six degrees of separation. Members find and connect to their existing business contacts and then to their contacts’ contacts. Members post resumes, form networks, write recommendations, and keep their contacts updated on changes in their professional lives. When members update their profiles their new information becomes immediately available to everyone in their networks.

Twitter is an innovative, free social network that restricts messages to 140 characters. “Tweets” range from “what I’m doing right this minute” to trends and important issues. More than 100 services have sprung up that mimic Twitter, and there are many sites that augment its services. Followers can tune in to messages from other members and send targeted messages to people they follow by simply putting @ in front of the other person’s Twitter name.

YouTube is the best-known and most popular video-sharing site. It was acquired by Google in 2006 and went mainstream in 2007, appealing to both individuals and businesses. Members upload more than 65,000 videos a day. Most social networks and Websites support video. As a social networking site, YouTube features personal spaces, playlists, friends, favorites, and conversations. To assess its value, think quality over quantity; positive comments mean more than the number of views.

Flickr is right up with Facebook in terms of size. It has 11 million regular members, 30 million monthly unique visitors, and more than 1 billion photos. There are Flickr groups for almost anything you can imagine ... anything. In addition to making it easy to upload photos and other images—with carefully chosen keywords, tags, file names, and image descriptions—Flickr has no trouble attracting search engines. Tags are descriptive labels photographers and viewers can apply to photographs.

These are the big kids on the block, but in each category, there are many other sites that are attracting members and offering an increasing number of features. Biggest is not always best. It pays to explore the less-well-known social media sites to find the right fit.

Meet the Blogging Experts on Twitter

A few experts I follow and thought you might want to, as well.

Denise Wakeman

• Business blogging & social marketing to help you get more online visibility & opportunities for you & your business. Sometimes tweet abt my running workouts.
• Location: North Hollywood, United States
• Web: http://www.denisewakeman.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/DeniseWakeman

Penny Sansevieri

• President and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc.
  
• Location: Southern California
• Web: http://www.amarketingexpert.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/Bookgal

Bob Baker

• Author, musician dedicated to showing indie artists how to get exposure, connect with fans, sell more music, and increase their incomes.
• Location: St. Louis, MO
• Web: http://www.bob-baker.com/buzz/
• Twitter: twitter.com/MrBuzzFactor

Remarkablogger

• Blog consultant and coach
• Location: Vermont
• Web: http://remarkablogger.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/remarkablogger

Russ Henneberry

• Helping tiny business make mighty profits using a personal computer, a little imagination and a few well-placed dollars.
• Location: Saint Louis
• Web: http://www.russhenneberry.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/RussHenneberry

MarketingProfs

• Head of content, editor, social media, marketing, great food, good wine, writer at www.annhandley.com.
• Location: Boston, Massachusetts
• Web: http://www.marketingprofs.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/MarketingProfs

Guy Kawasaki

• I am a firehose that answers the question: What's interesting? Co-founder of Alltop.
• Location: VirginAmerica 2A
• Web: http://alltop.com/
• Twitter: twitter.com/GuyKawasaki

Zaibatsu

• Just a guy who loves Social Media. Want to know what our company does: The 1st Rule of Fightclub: you don't talk about Fightclub
• Location: Denver
• Web: http://www.facebook.com/zaibatsu
• Twitter: twitter.com/zaibatsu

Terri Z Solo

• Solo entrepreneur, writer, soccer mom, wife, dog-lover, singer. I tweet about online marketing, resources I recommend, world peace and life in general.
• Location: Cary, NC
• Web: http://www.solo-e.com/blog
• Twitter: twitter.com/TerriZSoloCEO

Darren Rowse

• I blog about twitter and tweet about blogging. Sometimes I blog about tweeting about blogging and tweet about blogging about twitter.
• Location: Australia
• Web: http://www.problogger.net/about-darren-rowse-problogger/
• Twitter: twitter.com/problogger

Lisa Hanock Jasie

• PR & Social Media communicator, writer/blogger.
• Location: New York City
• Web: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lisahanockjasie
• Twitter: twitter.com/lisahanockjasie

Conniereece

• Every Dot Connects: communications, marketing, social media with flair. Wisdom that comes w/ age mixed w a youthful attitude of fun. Published writer.
• Location: Austin, TX
• Web: http://everydotconnects.com/twitter-welcome/
• Twitter: twitter.com/conniereece

Mashable

• The hottest Twitter news, Twitter tips and Twitter help. Plus, the best social media links around!
• Location: Scotland / SF
• Web: http://mashable.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/mashable

Copyblogger

• Founder of Copyblogger.
• Cofounder of DIY Themes, Teaching Sells, Lateral Action & two ornery kids.
• Location: Dallas, TX
• Web: http://authorityrules.com/
• Twitter: twitter.com/copyblogger

Follow the Bouncing E-mail

My daughters have been complaining about not receiving my e-mail attachments. Now, they tell me they are not even receiving my e-mails. They have a lot of company. My e-mails are bouncing back faster than I can hit “send” — well, my emails to anyone@charter.net, anyway. I had no idea how many people are on Charter. This is not good.

Nothing that involves the Internet is easy. It always has multiple steps, and this is no exception. I start by calling Charter, who tells me, “It’s not our fault. If your e-mail comes from your website, you will have to call your website host.” My website host says they can’t find anything wrong on their end; I should call Charter again. This gives me an instant stomachache.

Being technologically advanced, Charter has a female computer that tries to read my voice by asking me ridiculous questions to which there are no correct answers. Eventually, I give up and say “representative.” Wrong word. How about “operator”? Still wrong. “Agent?” Bingo.

Next step: the endless wait. Despite the fact that my call is important to them, I go into a loop that plays endless commercials for Charter, until a human being finally shows up and asks me for my PIN, which I don’t know. Somehow, he accepts one of the numbers I give him and tries to identify my problem. The agent gives up, says he will connect me with a supervisor, and puts me on perma-hold. The supervisor does not appear. Eventually, I am cut off.

This goes on for a while until I have a tantrum and actually get to speak to a real, live supervisor. I try to explain that all of my e-mails are coming back with an error message that indicates I’m sending SPAM. He suggests I forward the offending message (which one?) to postmaster@charter.net. "How can I do that if I can’t get through to Charter?" I ask. He prevails upon me to try. My e-mail bounces back. He gives me his private e-mail address and finally deduces that Charter doesn’t like my e-mail signature with its little ghost and links to my website, blogs, and twitter.

"Do my daughters really need my signature?" he asks. "Can I write the postmaster@charter.net from another e-mail address?" These suggestions are followed by a serious explanation of SPAM with which I am quite familiar, since a lot of it gets through, although, of course, not my little ghost logo or twitter link.

That whole procedure (four phone calls) takes over an hour, and I still haven’t begun to implement the supervisor’s multiple solutions. At the moment, I am too tired to even try. I only hope no one from Charter is expecting a reply to his or her e-mail message before tomorrow, or, perhaps, ever.

Confessions of a Web 2.0 Addict

I’m trying to remember how it all began. I think it started innocently, as these things usually do. I went to a St. Louis Publishers Association meeting, and Bob Baker, the speaker, was doing a presentation on something called “social networking.” It was intriguing but confusing. Even with the handout, I had no idea what he was talking about. “This is Web 2.0,” he said, if one can actually speak in italics. “If you’re an author, you must have a presence on the Web.”

I got the idea that a website is not enough to create that presence. Apparently, one also needs a blog, podcasts, a newsletter, an identity on Amazon, and memberships in such things as Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Gather. I’m not much of a joiner. I was overwhelmed.

I don’t remember when I attended that presentation, but I know it was pre-twitter. Since then, I’ve come a long way, baby. I have two blogs, a newsletter, and lots of memberships. I started a group on LinkedIn; I have a page on Facebook where my daughter’s friends write on my wall; and Amazon is #1 on next year's marketing plan (podcasting is #2). But what really blows my mind is the amount of time I spend micro-blogging on twitter. You’d be surprised at how much you can say with only 140 characters. Well, maybe you wouldn’t, but I was.

You can probably tell that I’ve jumped feet first into Web 2.0, astonishing young and old alike with my computer prowess — young being my daughters, who think I've lost my mind, and old being my contemporaries, who agree. What nobody told me about blogging and tweeting and joining is that they are seductive and addictive.

They are not just a part of marketing; they are a way of life. All day long and into the night I hear twitter making bird sounds as it informs me there is a new tweet on my TweetDeck. My e-mail is full of the latest blogs on blogging and tweets about twittering. I am constantly updating my e-mail list and planning my next newsletter or blog post. I have printed out so much advice on how to do it all better; I could start my own recycling plant. Only as I write this do I realize how far gone I am.

I am truly addicted, and I have no idea how Web 2.0 addicts recover. Everything I read tells me to blog and twitter more, not less. I guess I’m lucky because I don’t send and receive tweets on my iPhone or Blackberry, only because I don’t own them. But it’s only a matter of time.

It is almost midnight on New Years Eve of 2008. I’d love to say I’m resolving to cut down in 2009, but I'm not sure I can. This is bad, very bad.

Social Networking for Novices

Somewhere on one of my earlier marketing plans, I had a goal (or a strategy or a tactic — can’t remember which) of getting my name out there in cyberspace through social networking. I had help with the marketing plan but absolutely no clue what I was getting into with social networking. “Well, you know,” my marketing guru explained. "It’s sites like FaceBook and MySpace and Yahoo 360.” I really didn’t know, but I think I nodded anyway.

So, off I went to all these strange sites, where I filled out forms and invented passwords and created long, detailed, personal profiles. One the early ones I found was Gather, which was fun. I met a lot of nice people and posted book reviews and photos. I loved Gather until the powers that be changed it completely. I never figured out why they would take something that worked and break it; maybe it was part of their business plan.

MySpace was still pretty much for kids, so I skipped it. I did sign up for FaceBook, but never really got the hang of writing on people’s walls. On Yahoo 360, I started a blog, which is now languishing, since I have “The Writing Life” on my own website. Someone invited me to join LinkedIn, which I have found to be one of the best sites for making professional contacts. And. lately, I have learned to Twitter.

For my generation, I would have to say, Twittering is as strange and mysterious as text messaging in undecipherable code. It has its own version of Twitter terminology, which I printed out, and LOL (laughed out loud), it was so goofy.

Try translating this:
UR Tweet wos GR8, but I wld rather do V2V w/ U. RU up 4 that? If so, I’ll ttyl. FYI, 2nite is good 4me. TIA, BL

For the uninitiated, it means:
Your tweet (short, 140 character instant message or mini-blog post) was great, but I would rather do voice-to-voice (talk on the phone) with you. Are you up for that? If so, I’ll talk to you later. For your information, tonight is good for me. Thanks in advance, Bobbi Linkemer

People “follow” me, and I follow them on Twitter. It gets a little overwhelming, especially when I can’t remember exactly who they are or why I started following them in the first place. Their little messages — some of which are stream-of-consciousness accounts of every move they make — pop up on my TwitterDeck (downloads the tweets into different categories), always with links to someone else’s Twitter page/site/whatever.

In addition to just plain Twitter, there are TwitterPacks (a Wiki that lists Twitter members by category, geography, etc.); TwitterFeed.com (connects my blogs to Twitter and tweets them automatically); Twellow.com (where you find people to follow); myvidoop.com (where I signed up for TwitterFeed); TwitterBuzz (quick tips for business tweets); Tweeple (people who tweet, or is it twitter, from LinkedIn); and tinyurl.com (which I haven’t figured out yet).

I know I could easily make social networking (especially Twittering) my life’s work if I don’t get a handle on it immediately. I know that because it would appear that others are making it theirs. I can picture them, staring bleary-eyed into their computers, cell phones, Blackberries, and other tiny screens, texting, twittering, e-mailing, and slowly going blind and bonkers. It’s not a pretty picture.