HOW TO: Manage Social Media Goals and Expectations. You have insightful tweets, write amazing blog posts, and can make a viral video like it's nobody's business. So why don't you have 500,000 followers, 50,000 views per video, and your own personal social media army? People have been setting some strange, unrealistic, and possibly misguided expectations recently in social media. While you might believe that you're only worth something in social media if you have a huge audience, the simple fact is that it's not true. Understanding what you want out of social media and having smart goals can mean the difference between frustration and enjoyment.
This guide provides and overview of some ways to avoid the pitfalls of social media expectations and how to manage smart goals on the social web. Popularity game vs. real value The desire for social media popularity has been a growing phenomenon in recent years. So the first step in managing your social media expectations is this: don't get caught up in the popularity game. Avoiding pitfalls. 6 Unique Twitter Visualizations. Art, imagery, graphs, and maps help place context and a visual component to numbers, locations, and data.
Twitter, the ultimate collection of 140-character thoughts and data, does not come with image sharing, video embedding, or almost any other visual feature. However, it does come with an API and hundreds of people developing Twitter applications all the time. When reading the Twitter stream becomes stale or repetitive, try using some useful and fun Twitter applications that visualize trends, map out locations, or just please the senses. These are a few of the most unique and innovative visualizations of the Twitter stream: 1. Monitter is a real-time visualization of of Twitter trends. 2.Twittearth Twittearth is a 3D model of tweets from around the world. 3. TwitterThoughts is an advanced tool and mashup that visually graphs Twitter trends based on a variety of factors, such as number of tweets and followed total. 4. 5. 6. What Visualizations Are Next?
24 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed. Another week down, and another chance to gather all the social media wisdom from the experts and put it to good use for your personal brand, your business, or for plain old fun. Check out these indispensable resources which include an exclusive peek inside YouTube's inner sanctum, a swath of in-depth iPad coverage, and some essential social business tools. As if that's not enough, there are always those hilarious cat videos. Social Media How a Facebook Group Helped Reunite a Band for CharityThe band God Street Wine became popular in the 90s and played their last official show in 1999. For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable's social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
Tech & Mobile iPad App Hands-on Reviews: Twitterific, Netflix, and ABC [VIDEO]Want to see some of the most anticipated iPad apps in action? For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable's tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. Business. 18 Online Productivity Tools for Your Business. This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Small business owners may have more of a need than most to be able to access their chosen suite of productivity tools from more than one computer or platform. As a business or startup owner you may have occasion to bring your work home with you, or require frequent access to your to-do lists, notes and documents on the go.
Choosing primarily online tools for your productivity workflow is a great way to address the issue of source agnostic accessibility. It's also a convenient method to ensure you have a backup of your important day-to-day items and files in case a particular computer or device fails. With the tools on this list, you should be able to check in on your current workflow stack regardless of which machine you happen to be in front of, what operating system it uses, and what browser it's running. The Tao of Tweeting. Soren Gordhamer works with individuals and groups on how to effectively use new technologies. He is the author of the book Wisdom 2.0 and the organizer of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference. He is @SorenG on Twitter. It doesn't take much skill to tweet — you simply type what you want to say in under 140 characters. But while the barrier to entry is extremely low, tweeting well is something else entirely.
I’m sure we all follow people who consistently offer enriching and insightful posts, and about whom we think, “Wow. They really know how to tweet.” If we consider tweeting to be something of an art form, then what are the characteristics that make for "good art" on Twitter? 1. “The person of superior integrity does not insist upon his integrity; For this reason, he has integrity.” – Tao te Ching Another, more tao-friendly approach, is to show more than tell. 2.
"The Way alone is good at beginning and good at ending. " – Tao te Ching There is nothing wrong with those goals. 3. 4. 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business. Samir Balwani is an emerging technology strategist at Morpheus Media, a firm specializing in Social Marketing, SEM, and SEO. You can follow him on Twitter @samirbalwani and get his newsletter.
One of the biggest misconceptions with online marketing is that social media is only for large brands. Truthfully, a small business that invests its time wisely can improve customer (or client) loyalty and traditional word of mouth marketing efforts. Social media is useful for almost every type of business. Cafes, retail stores, and even professional services can build their online reputation and increase trust. By taking advantage of social media, businesses can make themselves more accessible, more personable, and maintain long term connections. Here are five ways small businesses can capitalize on this new form of marketing. Why use social media? The best way to illustrate why small businesses are using social media is with a story. Now, that mentality has changed. Big Win 1: Local Social Networks. Twitter Pics: 4 Tools to Track Twitpics in Realtime. One of the best and most popular 3rd party apps for Twitter is TwitPic, the top service for sharing pictures via Twitter and Twitter apps such as Tweetie.
Twitpic and its competitors (most notably Yfrog) have created a new photography-sharing ecosystem that connects friends and shares our best moments visually. You haven't experienced Twitter or Twitpics though if you haven't seem them fly across your screen in realtime. It's fascinating to see the people, experiences, and tweets that comprise the Twitterverse, and interestingly enough, there are a handful of tools dedicated to doing just that. So prepare for a visual odyssey as we highlight four tools for tracking TwitPics in realtime:Got another realtime picture tracker you'd like us to know about?
1. We like the fact that Pingwire was created by a sleepless coder in about 40 minutes. 2. 3. Picfog brands itself as realtime image search. 4. Is Twicsy technically realtime? BONUS: Gimme Shiny! So which one's your favorite? PicFog Displays the Strength of Real-Time Image Search. PicFog is a real-time Twitter image search engine that's been around for some time, diligently adding new features, the last of which is support for Twitter image sharing services Twitgoo and Yfrog (it previously only supported Twitpic). On the homepage, PicFog displays [*warning: some of the images may be NSFW] all the new images posted to Twitter in real-time, with auto-refresh which you can stop at any time by clicking on the "pause" button.
Of course, that's a lot of images to handle, but you can search for specific images either by entering a search query or by clicking on one of the current Twitter trending topics, displayed on the right. You can also see the number of retweets for each image, or search for images of a specific user, by entering a query such as For example, I've tried the query "Star Trek" (currently a trending topic) on both PicFog and Google Image Search.
5 Terrific Twitter Research Tools. Twitter has a wealth of data - it's a global thought-stream on every topic imaginable. But how do we convert that raw data into insights, trends and actionable information? How can we find the signal in all that noise? Fortunately, there are several tools out there that can help analyze Twitter data, understand user behavior, and graph it for analysis and presenting to others. Today, we've picked out five great tools to get you started. For more in-depth information about trend tracking on Twitter, take a look at last month's article, 15 Fascinating Ways to Track Twitter Trends. 1. Trying to figure out how often you're actually tweeting? Ideal for: researching individual behavior on Twitter 2. Trendrr is a new favorite among analysts looking to keep track of trends and compare information. Ideal for: tracking Twitter search, comparing information 3.
If you're looking to do research on retweeting and link-sharing on Twitter, Tweetmeme provides retweeting stats for articles on Twitter. 4. 5. Does Social Media Make Us Better People? We're tracked everywhere these days, and not just by the growing number of CCTV cameras in our cities or the effortless traceability of cellphones. Rather, I'm talking about the cameraphone user who automatically uploads her photos to Flickr or Twitpic, who with the tap of a screen can post a video to YouTube or stream a scene live on Qik. I'm talking about the immediacy and accessibility of Twitter messages that make private conversations public; tools that open up the very real possibility that every action you take, whether in a public space or in seemingly private emails and text messages, is being logged and possibly shared with thousands of people.
How does this change the way we act? Might it actually make us...nicer to one another? Video Sharing The 1984 scenario is one we're conditioned to fear: an all-powerful government judging our every move. Photo Sharing Did Miley Cyrus mock Asian people in a widely-shared photograph? Twitter and Micro-Messaging Rise of the Social Conscience? Top Social Media Posts This Week. What were the most interesting social media stories on Mashable and around the web this week? What were we socially bookmarking, blogging, Twittering, "liking", emailing and sharing with our online friends and followers?
Here's the rundown: 1. 70+ Free iPhone Apps for Social Media Mavens - Sean P. Aune creates the most comprehensive collection so far of social media apps for the iPhone. 2. HOW TO: Build the Ultimate Social Media Resume - Dan Schawbel throws away the paper resume and replaces it with something a little more...social. 3. 4. 5. 10 Great Implementations of Facebook Connect - Ben Parr showcases the best Facebook Connect-enabled sites. 6. 7. Social Media Around the Web There's lots of insightful social media coverage around the web, of course. 1. 2. 49 Amazing Social Media, Web 2.0 And Internet Stats - Adam Singer of Pierson Grant Public Relations runs the (remarkable) numbers on social media. 3. 4. 5. 6. Your Suggestions: What Did We Miss?
What did we miss? DMfail Fails, Reborn as Re-Twit'd. The creators of sneaky Twitter app DMfail are back creating apps, but this time they've released something pretty useful that's likely to last more than a week. re-Twit'd is a simple application that lets you see what's hot on Twitter based on how frequently something is retweeted. Albeit simple, this app proves to be pretty handy. We really like the ability to see what's getting buzz in the past hour, day, week, or fortnight (2 weeks). Also pretty nifty is the ability to retweet retweets without giving away Twitter names and passwords.
By clicking on the "Retweet" link, you are directed back to the Twitter web page where the original tweet automatically appears, and all you have to do is hit update. We likey (especially since we seem to be pretty buzz worthy today), but check it out for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments. Twitter. HOW TO: Win Friends and Twinfluence People. Mark Drapeau is a regular contributor to Mashable. In the last year or so, microsharing service Twitter has grown by leaps and bounds, in terms of both popularity and usefulness. Regardless of the precise companies or services that become the most popular in the future, forming and utilizing decentralized social networks through microsharing is most likely here to stay, because it is fun and useful.
But the lack of structure, bounty of third party applications, and global sources of expert advice can also be daunting to newbies. So, for those who are new to Twitter, here are 10 things I've learned about winning friends and twinfluencing people: Win Friends 1. Just like in everyday life, if you want people to notice you, somehow you've got to stand out in the crowd. 2. Twitter is inherently a conversation. 3. People get on my radar when they selflessly and repeatedly add value to a community of readers. 4. 5. You can't just Twitter; it's too one-dimensional. Twinfluence People 6. 7. 8. 9.