Tag: Social Media

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Join Our Private Social Network

Hey, I am testing out my own private social network on Ning. I’d like to invite you to check it out and join if you want.

I have a several forums there, blog posts, cool viral videos, photos, and notes and tips. Check it out, join, add your own photos, videos and tips. Have fun! It is a very cool application and it’s all free. I’m trying to identify if clients and readers like it and would use it to connect with others.

Leave me a note and tell me what you think and if you think that you would use something like this on site’s you visit.

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Twitter the New Ad Ticker

I started out on Twitter a month of two ago and initially loved the interface, the interaction, and reading mundane information posted by others. Now I am looking at Twitter with a different perspective after having used it for a while.

I think if you have a community of close associates Twitter would be great like instant messaging on the fly, but if you don’t, Twitter is now all about marketing, self-promotion, and advertising. If you look at any mature Twitter site, it is chock full of links to eBooks, to people’s blogs, or how to buy their new T-Shirt. In fact it has gotten so bad now, that mainly I use Twitter to post my blog feed and occasionally monitor it for information.

Twitter is mutating as people figure out how to use it and integrate it into their lives. I do still feel that it’s a fine tool for a network of colleagues or close friends, but for me I am seeing it as a marketing vehicle and I’m not sure I want to read other people’s advertising messages in the rare free time that I have.

I’m sure that the makers of Twitter did not intend for the application to become an ad vehicle, but take a look at my Twitter friends posts and that’s all you see. http://twitter.com/mccordweb

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Social Media Marketing Packaged For the “Extreme” Push

I have been watching this trend and thought it was a good blog post. Social media networking started out as a must have for the everyday person. When MySpace was new, you just had to have a page. Then there was Facebook, then LinkedIn. All the sudden there were too many sites to participate in and it became difficult to find out what you should do and where you should invest your time.

I have all these tools in play, but have found that the social networking is just too time consuming to do personally. What I have seen is all the sudden the PR field has jumped with both feet into social media networking and in a stroke of genius now is packaging social networking sites with viral video, and online and offline push with an effort to spin a client into the stratosphere.

Is it workable, yes you bet, these tools in the hands of a PR expert can get the online media exposure that some clients and products can really benefit from. I have one marketeer who is doing just that and just got a call from Microsoft that may turn into a consulting gig to teach their staff about social media.

What I found totally interesting was that the PR world is not just selling the social media aspect but by packaging set up as a part of multiple services they are hiding the cost of the set up needed to get going and getting a  big fee in the process. Truthfully anyone can set up these account for free, but this is where the parallel ends, it is what you do with them that make the difference. Having the account open means nothing, it is about building, linking, and the viral video aspect that makes these programs different and possibly worth the money you will spend.

Although for many of my clients the social networking medium is a novelty and a must have, but what do you do with it once you have it, the PR firm puts social media on steroids. This trend is definitely worth watching. Here’s just one example that I have found recently that is worth reading about.

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Put Twitter to Work for You

Twitter heads reading your Twitter feed.Ever go to a social networking site and see a new “friend” who has literally thousands of connections? How about at Twitter how do people get this number of people to follow them and find this many people to follow? How can you get this kind of activity on Twitter?

If you’re new to Twitter, start first by searching for people in your field, search on a keyword phrase like Internet marketing, or even just search on your family name. Twitter will return a slew of people who match your category and then click in to just follow as many as possible. You can always delete someone later so initially you are after volume. You will be amazed at how many people in return will choose to follow you.

Then as someone follows you, visit their page to see who they follow and select the people that you want to follow too. It’s that easy. After a while you will find that there are some people who seem to post on Twitter every five minutes. You can select following from your own Twitter sidebar and just block them.

You’ll find that when people first start with Twitter they will write every little thing that they are doing and after a while will settle down. Those that don’t just block them unless you really want to know what they ate for lunch.

What I like about Twitter is the ability to watch literally hundreds of mini blogs in a moment. I pick up interesting tidbits, cool applications, and new blogs all the time. I use Twitter to promote my own blog and to watch what others think are important. I’ve even used Twitter Feed to add my blog posts automatically to Twitter and Twitter applications to bring my Twitter posts automatically to my own blog sidebar. Twitter is just a new version of social media and one that you can put to use for your website and business. The possibilities are endless. If your family and colleagues are on Twitter, you’ll have more the friend and social aspect and you can even make your posts private and available only to them. Twitter is just a cool new way to connect.

Some of the ways you could use Twitter for business are to post new products and links, if you’re a real estate agent post your new listings on Twitter, if you have an ebook you can offer tidbits and link to your purchase page, if you are monetizing your blog point to your blog. Think of what you could do with Twitter to put it to work for you pointing others to your content and online services.

My Twitter ID is McCordWeb, add me to your Twitter panel and I’ll follow you.