background preloader

Ping.fm 1

Facebook Twitter

More stuff in ping.fm

The Paisano® Social Enterprise. National Journal Online -- Under The Influence -- Lobbying Lawm. How to Show Your Customers You’re Listening, Even as They Might. After my phone conversation with Register.com this past weekend, I have a renewed sense of what it takes to show good listening skills. It may seem like common sense to many, but it is really an art to get to the right balance of talking and listening in communications. The results will either build your brand, or contribute to its demise.

There are a few techniques you can use to show your customers you’re listening, even as they might not be giving you the impression they are: Ask questions – you’re in charge of “why” and “how”, so you’ll need to focus on “what” as in what happened, and “when” it happened.Restate what they said – it’s always a good idea to repeat or restate what you heard, to play it back for the other party.Say it differently – in some cases, it’s also helpful to find another way to saying it. If you learn to do one thing well, start with listening.

Everything else will follow. SEOmoz | 21 Tips to Earn Links and Tweets to Your Blog Post. It's been a long time since I've covered blogging strategies, and my recent panel with one of the world's foremost authorities got me thinking that given our success, both with the SEOmoz blog and with blogs for clients, it's time to share a bit more. Today, I'd like to cover how to make that single post you're composing more likely to earn the attention it deserves. Let's dive into the list: #1 - Target Content at Those Who Can Help Spread It Whether you call them "Sneezers" (Seth Godin), "Connectors" (Malcolm Gladwell) or "Linkerati" (yours truly), there is clearly a subset of individuals on the web who are responsible for helping to push content into the collective consciousness. Making your Mom happy is nice, but it won't bring the results you desire - if you want links and tweets, you need to go to the source.

Making this crowd appreciate your work requires research. . #2 - Reward Those Who Share #3 - Choose a Subject That Readers Can Relate To #4 - Write Exceptionally Well It's hard. Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Connecte. Photo by D'Arcy Norman I am participating in this year's "Connected Futures: New Social Strategies adn Tools for Communities of Practice" a five week online workshop for community managers, designers and conveners to explore social strategies and tools to support their work. The workshop begins on April 20th and you can register here. If you have taken on the role of community manager or are tasked with online facilitation of a community, network, or group and want to see how and if social technologies fit, this is the workshop to take.

For the first Connected Futures workshop almost a year ago, I led a field trip to the NpTech Tag Community and participated as faculty. I'm excited to see how the workshop as evolved and be a participant. I've had a long relationship with CSquared. Recently, I've been exploring John Smith, Nancy White, and Etienne Wenger's work and their forthcoming book on technology stewardship for communities of practice called Digital Habits. Flickr screencapture here. Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK: What would a Google-Twit. New FriendFeed: Simpler, Faster, Better (Maybe Too Fast) FriendFeed cofounder Paul Bucheit was recently asked what it was like to be the R&D department for Facebook . His response was appropriately humble, but you can’t help but wonder how long it will be before Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed all start to look pretty much identical as the services simply copy the best features from their competitors .

One thing is for sure, though: FriendFeed moves the fastest. They were the first to add comments to status updates, the first to bring in third party feeds and the first to realize the value of search . They also experimented with real time streams way before the others. Now FriendFeed is taking the next step in its evolution with a complete redesign and lots of new features. The first thing you’ll notice is the new look of the site. The most noticeable new feature is real time streaming. As real time feeds come into your stream, it pushes what you are reading further down, which also can be a little annoying. How to Combine Google Search with Twitter Search. No one says Twitter search is better than Google; instead, it is different.

You can’t compare them but you can combine them. This post looks into ways to check relevant Twitter updates while you are searching Google. Twitter Search Results on Google: this script displays 5 most recent tweets based on your search query, giving both real-time Twitter search results and Google results on the same page: WebMynd enables you to search a wealth of search platforms simultaneously with your Google search, by default: Twitter Search, Amazon, YouTube; but you can also add numerous other search options (e.g.

FreshNetworks Blog Blog Archive Social networks: acquisitio. Image by Getty Images via Daylife Presentations from Facebook and MySpace at the Marketing 2.0 conference caused something of a stir – first of all for getting both on stage at the same time, and second as Damien Vincent from Facebook, having only just joined them from MySpace, seemed to momentarily forget who he was working for. But the content of their presentations was interesting, if only to see how both organisations approach selling their marketing potential to brands. Of particular interest was a set of statistics shown by Olivier Hascot from MySpace, based on surveys in the UK.

They found that: 40% of Brand Friends remembered the advertiser when shopping either online or on the high street22% of Brand Friends said that they spend more money with the advertiser These could be impressive statistics for MySpace and would no doubt interest any advertise looking to raise both brand awareness and customer spend in the current economic climate.

- Constructive Grumpiness - Community Management Optimization ( Social Media Community Manager Job Description aimClear Search. Over the past 2 years, the relatively close knit blog universe has exploded in a massive confluence of social expression and corporate reaction. A cottage industry of owner-operators, trawling social media on behalf of themselves and others, has cropped up in lofts, dorms, agencies and iPhones. These are the new social media Community Managers and corporate is clearly looking. This post offers a granular look at crucial skills, essential duties and a job description for the CM role. “That cottage industry will become as important as PR, Marketing, Customer Service, Sales.” -Lee Odden- Often the key to integrating social media into the marketing mix is about not hiring immediately, but rather sharing CM duties cross departments. She says, “Hire someone who is addicted to the conversation and will be around on the weekends to approve comments, continue discussions and put out fires when needed. 9 to 5’ers need not apply.

Qualifications and Experience Essential Duties and Responsibilities. Lasagna and chips - unexpected combinations for creativity and i. Image through ericmackonline.com This post may be a little chaotic as I'm using it to get a grip on some of my ideas about social media for organisations. Tomorrow I'm going to write with Sibrenne Wagenaar; we are writing a booklet on social media for learning and collaboration. We start with social media for professionals (individuals), then teams, then organisations. It's the organisational chapter that needs much more thinking. One confusion is brought by the fact that organisations can embrace social media from so many different angles.

Tools and culture: is your organisational culture ready for social media or do you want to shift the culture by introducing social media?. Another dilemma is how to balance individual preferences and creativity versus uniformity in tools. By the way a nice guide of where to start with social media can be found here on the technotheory blog. Seth's Blog: The power of a tiny picture (how to improve yo. If it's important enough for you to spend your time finding and connecting with new people online, it's important enough to get the first impression right. If you use any online social network tool, the single most important first impression you make is with the 3600 to 5000 pixels you get for your tiny picture.

In the social group I run, part of my job is to pick the featured members. As a result, I spend a lot of time looking at little pictures. Here's one person's take on the things you can do to avoid wrecking that first impression: Have a professional or a dedicated amateur take your picture.Use a white background, or at least a neutral one.

No trees! 7 Top Twitter Topic Trackers - ReadWriteWeb. For a service that simply takes 140 characters of input and then blasts them out in front of potentially hundreds of thousands of readers at a time, there has been a lot of work by people and businesses to figure out the best way to re-interpret and re-group Twitter posts in to meaningful categories, trends and threads. Two common ways that have developed are link tracking and meme tracking. In the first case, it's fairly simple - just take all the URLs posted on Twitter, uncompress them if necessary, add up the uniques, and sort them by popularity. But today we are going to focus on the latter case, services that look for a specific keyword, topic, or hashtag (all falling under the fuzzy category of meme or viral idea) and cluster related tweets together.

NEW! Follow ReadWriteWeb on Twitter There are two types of topic trackers out there: List and waterfall. Tweetizen Twitscoop TweetChannel Tweetscan Tweetscan is the only application in this round-up with a subscription fee. Twistori Monitter. Louisgray.com: BurnURL Unveils ShareBar 2 With Moods, E-mail and. The world of URL shorteners is being hotly debated this week, and seeing tremendous change, with bit.ly making news by raising a new round of venture funding, and the release of DiggBar. In this wake, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land asks openly, "which URL shortening service should you use? ". Joshua Schachter says they add a layer of indirection to an "already creaky system", and Jason Kottke adds on, saying they "suck" in general. But as the use of Twitter explodes, so does the use of shorteners, as many are debating the number of characters they have left for tweets, or what one service gains them over another, as Twitter's built-in limitations make their use a necessity.

The New BurnURL ShareBar 2.0 Burning a link on the BurnURL site Getting a "Burned" URL to share Integrated Sharing to Many Social Services Sharing to Social Services via BurnURL Sharing by E-mail via BurnURL E-mail Sharing A Tweets Button that Shows Mentions of the BurnURL Mood Mining Ratings Statistics. Why I Suck At Twitter: Confession Of A Failure. By Sunil Pathak of Blogger’s Lab. Follow him @sunilpathak. If you are expecting anything out of the space from this post then I am sorry to disappoint you. You had enough of that all ready; you have heard many success stories and theories on twitip.

Now it’s my turn to tell you my unsuccessful twitter encounter. Why I failed to do what every nowise is doing with twitter now days. I Didn’t Give It My Personal Touch Personalize your profiles so your followers can get a glimpse of your tastes by viewing your profile! Upload your pictureSay something about you in one line bioUpdate your location, time zoneLink your about page to a “more info” url Use custom background if you are not good with designing consider using one of this services Twitterbacks, Twitbacks, or TwitterImage I Never Leverage My Other Social Networking Profiles I Followed The Bigshots Only I Was Self-Focused I Never Reciprocate I Annoy My Followers Don’t be a bot. YouTube Adds Call To Action Tool For NonprofitVideos - frogloop.

YouTube’s nonprofit channel just released a cool new tool that allows nonprofits to incorporate a call-to-action functionality into the videos they post on YouTube. Nonprofits have been lobbying for this type of tool for a while, in order to drive traffic back to their own websites so people can actually take action without having to remember the URL’s campaign name mentioned in the video. Here’s how it works. 1. 2. 3. To kick off the new “call-to-action” tool, YouTube featured a video from charity:water on the YouTube homepage, which used a take action overlay to encourage YouTube users to donate money to build wells and provide clean, safe drinking water.

“The response from the YouTube community was overwhelming. Report: Users Expect Brands to be on YouTube - But Don't Wa. According to a new report by Entertainment Media Research, a London-based media consultancy firm, YouTube users in the U.S. clearly see the popular streaming video site as the default destination for streaming video content.

While the researchers found that users expect brands to have a presence on YouTube, however, most users also said that they did not want to see any additional ads on the service, and over 50% stated that they preferred the site when it was less commercialized. Users Expect Brands to be on YouTube Unsurprisingly, the report also concludes that YouTube is a perfect playground for marketers who are looking to engage teenagers and young adults. These users are extremely loyal to YouTube, and, according to this report, the majority of this demographic believes that it is a good thing that brands use YouTube. They also believe that brands who have a presence on YouTube are 'forward thinking and innovative.' Channels? More Interesting Data: YouTube At Work Comments.

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Time Man. My colleague, Steve Heye,and fellow chapter author for the NTEN book, Managing Your Mission To Meet Technology, created the above slidedeck for a career training workshop at the YMCA. It's about using social networking tools to support your career. Lots of great stuff here! My takeaways: Slide 31: Some great points about balancing the line between individual presence and organizational presence on social networking sites: Read the policies in your employee manualUse of YMCA equipmentSharing confidential informationExtra caution with minors (Child Abuse)Avoid posting or acting on behalf of the YMCASpeak from your opinionDo not use the YMCA logoIf in doubt, start sentence with, In my opinion… Slide 44: Some good time management tips for using the social web purposefully.Finding Time: Using Time Wisely: Steve has some good tips on how to use LinkedIn.

Here's my advice (and a request) to Steve: If you do this again, I would recommend checking out Dan Schawbel's book "ME 2.0" Demi Moore helps stop suicide on Twitter. Persistence: The Key to Social Media Strategy | Social Media Exp. The Power of Influence: The ROI of Social Media Marketing. New FriendFeed interface to roll out Monday VentureBeat. Sources: Google In Late Stage Talks To Acquire Twitter (Updated) The Discovery Engine Is Coming. Experts Discuss 4 Key Reasons Why Social Media Fails Marketing. Yahoo Launches Slick Desktop AIR App For Monitoring Twitter. How to Promote Your Slide Show Online. 100 Best Blogs for Those Who Want to Change the World | Best Uni. Track Gmail Messages with Google Analytics. What's Wrong with Facebook? When Strategy Fails to Meet Exe. 10 Facebook apps you might actually want to install. Facebook Adds Another Way for Users to Share Pages with Friends: Traffick: Is Guy Kawasaki Singlehandedly Ruining Twitter? (Part.

PUT THIS IN YOUR ROI PIPE AND SMOKE IT - Search Engine Guide Blo. Facebook Promoting Private Groups for Families to Keep Older Use. Why Following Too Many People Will Cost You $ Socialized The death of the death of the death of … Top 25 Free eBooks on Social Media. Atlas of Cyberspace - Full Content.