A Contrary View of Social Media

There is no question that social media is a powerful communication tool not only in this country but around the world. My focus in "The Writing Life" has been on helping writers tap into this power to promote your books. To that end, I have recently posted a series of essays on understanding and getting around the giants of social media—Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube.

I am frequently amazed at the amount of time many of my friends and colleagues spend on these networking sites, as well as staying current with countless blogs, news outlets, and forums. To tell the truth, I often fail to keep up with "friends" and "connections."

Why? Because my daily life is a juggling act of responsibilities and to-dos, and social networking is just one of the many balls I'm trying to keep in the air. I know I have lots of company in this lament.

There is one blog I subscribe to: Zen Habits by Leo Babauta. While I am striving to maintain my personal juggling act, Babauta is urging me to get rid of some of those balls and simplify, simplify. What a neat but seemingly impossible idea. To underscore his message, he has made available his latest book, called focus. It's online and on Kindle, and it's free—not only free but uncopyrighted. Use or copy or forward any part of it he urges, but please attribute the work to its Leo Babauta.

His point is that social media, blogs, everything online, and especially e-mail are addictive. If you can't stay away and you feel empty when you're not online, you are addicted. Breaking an addiction is tough but possible. Babauta is not advocating that you trash your computer, disconnect your Internet access, or close all your accounts. He is simply saying that all this addictive activity is time consuming and counter productive to the creative process. If you are a writer, that is not a good thing.

focus is a practical little book on how to break addictions, shed the superfluous in your life, and get off the gerbil wheel. I think it's worth a try.

Ten Characteristics of an Outstanding Website

1. A memorable identity: develop a clear, consistent message, a theme that is unique to you.
2. New content: To generate repeat traffic, change something on your Website at least once a month (a headline, monthly feature, blog posts, special offer).
3. Something of value: Make your content informative, entertaining, inspirational, educational, or provocative. Be generous; give stuff away.
4. Appeal to search engines: Research and use Meta tags and keywords to help search engines and Web surfers find you.
5. Link exchanges: Find complementary sites to link to and have them link back to your site.
6. Interactivity: Provide a way for visitors to comment or provide feedback.
7. Consistency with other social media: Be sure your identity on social networking sites, blogs, newsletters, and articles reflects the same person and style.
8. Graphics: A picture is worth 1,000 words; 1,000 words are too many for Web surfers to wade through.
9. Ease of bookmarking: Use widgets to ask people to bookmark certain Web pages to Digg, StumbleUpon, Sphinn, and other bookmarking sites.
10. A way to capture e-mail addresses: Use a mailing list service to collect e-mail addresses to send out announcements, special offers, or a newsletter.

[Video] 5 Reasons Wordpress Should Be Your Author Website Platform

This is a guest post from Russ Henneberry. Russ writes, speaks, consults and executes on Internet marketing strategies that make mighty profits for tiny businesses. You can read Russ's Internet marketing blog here or learn more about his Wordpress Website Design here.

Growing an author's platform starts with a powerful and simple to use website platform. It is the "hub" of activity for you as an author. This 8-minute video and the article below it details 5 reasons Wordpress should be your author's platform.


Reason 1 - Wordpress is Flexible If you need to make a change to the text, images, video, etc., on your Website you will want to be able to make those changes yourself. Wordpress is the most intuitive and user-friendly platform available. In addition to making edits, you will also want to be adding new pages, articles, videos, and images to your Website. A living and breathing Website that is growing over time will build a community around you and your work.

Reason 2 - Wordpress is Discoverable Google is a powerhouse, and you can grow your author's platform by taking advantage of the traffic that Google will send your way. Wordpress makes it easy for both humans and search engines like Google to "discover" the content of your Website.

Reason 3 - Wordpress is Shareable The real power of the Internet is the remarkable speed and efficiency with which we can share things of interest and value to us. Wordpress is able to add the functionality needed to spread your message across the Web.

Reason 4 - Wordpress is Interactive As an author, you will want your fans to be able to interact with you and with each other. Wordpress can be configured to be as interactive as you want it to be with commenting, voting, surveys, forums, and more.

Reason 5 - Wordpress can be Automated When you add new articles, videos, and images to your Website you will want to let the members of your social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) know that you have something with which to interact or share. Wordpress can automate the "pushing" of this new content to your social networks. Learn more about Wordpress Web Design here.

Getting Around YouTube

This is the eighth in a series on Social Media.

No exploration of the giants of social media would be complete without YouTube, the largest of the video sharing sites. There is no question that YouTube is responsible for some of the Web's most successful viral campaigns (messages that take on lives of their own). Once your video is on YouTube, you can import it into a blog post and embed it in your own Website, thus tripling its exposure.

There are two aspects to YouTube: posting your own videos and watching other people's. Yours can be as simple as sitting in front of a camcorder and talking or as professionally produced as you can afford. Two pieces of advice when you make a video: keep it short and make it memorable—humorous, genuine, out of the ordinary.

When you visit YouTube, you will be prompted to set up an account or log in. In the upper right hand corner, under your name and a little drop down menu with My Channel, Inbox, Account, Subscriptions, My Videos, and Favorites. Your Channel is your public page. It contains your most recent uploaded video, your favorites, a place for comments, subscribers, and friends. You can edit your Channel page, Favorites, and Playlists by clicking on Account in the drop down menu.

There is always more than one way to get around a social networking site. Across the top of the screen are links to many of the same pages, plus some new ones:

• My Videos & Playlists - where you will find your own videos
• Favorites - other people's videos you have marked as your favorites
• My Channel - where all of your information is in one place, plus the ability to change layout
  
• Video Editor - an opportunity to edit or change your personal videos
  
• Subscriptions - new videos you may wish to subscribe to and recommended channels
  
• Insight - total number of viewers who have seen your videos, as well as more detailed information
  
• Messages - from people who have viewed your videos, plus a chance to reply
• Account Settings - includes profile setup, playback setup, e-mail options, privacy settings, activity sharing, and mobile setup

It is no wonder YouTube is popular and growing fast. If you haven't explored the many avenues for interacting with viewers and friends, you should set aside some time to do so. Every link leads to a whole set of opportunities.

Getting Around Flickr

This is the seventh in a series on Social Media.

Flickr is the the largest of the online photo sharing communities. It boasts 11 million regular members, 30 million monthly visitors, and over 1 billion photos. There are also Flickr groups for almost anything you can imagine.

When you set up your account, uploading images requires only three steps.

1. Choose the images you want to upload.
2. Click the upload button.
3. Give each image a title, a description, and popular tags.

Even easier than that is the "Flickr Uploader," which you can download to your desktop. To upload a photo, just drag and drop it into the icon. In addition to ease of uploading, Flickr gives you great exposure with search engines when you use keywords in your tags, file names, and image descriptions. If you click on an image you will see more information about it, such as tags and descriptions; when you click on a tag, you will see all of the other images on your site with the same tag. That's why it's a good idea to fill in this information as you upload each image. Just as you would develop a marketing strategy for LinkedIn or your Facebook page, you should establish one for Flickr.

Clients and viewers can find you through your images. You can share your photos with the public (who can post comments) or limit them to your friends; you can also keep them private. Fickr allows you to organize and link to your photos, separate them into galleries or sets (collections of related images), and export them into your blog and Website.

Flickr is a powerful tool and well worth the time it takes to explore its many tools.

Getting Around Twitter

This is the sixth in a series on Social Media.

Twitter—also called microblogging—allows you to send messages up to 140 characters in length. While that concept once sounded impossible, Twitter has become a worldwide phenomenon. For one thing, tweets are sent in real time making them a great way to broadcast news, events, products, services, and announcements. People tweet about conferences, uprisings around the w

All kind of apps have sprung up around Twitter, such as TweetDeck and HootSuite, which let you arrange tweets in columns by subject matter or favorites and import your blog posts as tweets.

Twitter has its own language, e.g., retweet is to copy and repost someone else’s tweet because you think it’s worth passing along. Follow means to keep track of another person’s tweets; a follower is someone who keeps track of yours. TweetChat is an application that permits multiple users to follow a Twitter conversation. A hashtag (#) in front of a word helps the Twitter search engine find a particular subject. DM is a direct message only the recipient can see.

Twitter isn't complicated. Across the top of the window is a black bar that contains these links:

• Search for people on Twitter. The second column contains current trends.
• Home has a place to write your message, as well see messages of those you are following.
• Profile shows the messages you have sent to others, plus a section with information about you.
• Messages contains recent messages to you and from you, plus a place to send a message to the last person who followed you on the "new Twitter."
• Who to follow provides a list of people you might wish to follow.
• A little pencil gives you another fast way to tweet.

Twitter is powerful, enlightening, and immediate. The site may have started out as a way to tell the world what you were having for breakfast or what movie you are going to see, but it didn’t take long for savvy social networkers to see its value. Using Twitter shorthand, you can squeeze a lot of information into those 140 characters.

Getting Around LinkedIn

This is the fifth in a series on Social Media.

LinkedIn is the social network for businesspeople and professionals. It works on the principle of six degrees of separation. The idea is that you can find and connect to your business contacts and then to their business contacts. You can post your resume, write recommendations for others, and keep your contacts informed of changes in your professional life by simply updating your profile.

When you log in to LinkedIn, you are taken to your Home Page. At the top is a bar with links to Home, Profile, Contacts, Groups, Jobs, Inbox, Companies, and More. Next to that is a search box to help you find People.

• Home is the main page. This link also gives you an opportunity to advertise.
  
• Profile is all about you. This is the most important page; so, it's a good idea to fill out your profile as completely as possible. You can also make your profile public and searchable. Under your profile is a new feature that allows you to describe your books if you are published or your patents if you have any. There is also a listing of all of your recent activities and blog posts, if you feed your blog(s) to LinkedIn.
  
• Contacts shows your connections in alphabetical order, a search box, and a way to add and organize connections.
  
• Groups has links to Groups you may like, a directory of Groups, a way to create a group, and Groups you have started. Groups are a great way to promote discussion and share information, as well as promote your business. The rest of the page is devoted to Groups you belong to.
  
• Jobs is all about finding, posting, and managing jobs, as well as solutions to hiring problems. You can search for jobs and see those you may be interested in based on your profile
  
• Inbox is for mail. You can accept invitations, view messages, compose messages to others, and keep track of messages you have sent or archived.
  
• Companies allows you to find companies you're interested in and follow them. There is also a list of companies you may wish to follow. You can see how you are connected to a company, who recently joined the company, and where they may have worked in the past. There is even an application on businessweek.com where you could click an icon to see how you are connected to the company featured in an article.
• More contains one of LinkedIn's most popular features—Answers— a discussion where people can ask and answer questions. If you are a contributor, you will be ranked by the quantity and quality of your Answers. This is a great way to gain visibility by demonstrating your knowledge and expertise. More also provides links to a Learning Center, a way to Upgrade Your LinkedIn Account, and your personal Applications.
  

Under the bar is your photo, a place to write what's on your mind, and a button to share what you have written. Under that are updates on what your connections are doing. In the smaller right-hand column are People You May Know, so that you can build your network. Under their pictures are paid Advertisements.

At the bottom of every page are Customer Service links. One of most interesting is Tools, where you can choose among LinkedIn's Productivity Tools. These include an Outlook and a Browser Toolbar, an E-mail Signature, a Mac Search Widget, and a Google Toolbar Assistant.

Take some time to get to know LinkedIn on your own. It is a powerful social networking site for professionals, authors, and people in the business world.