The story is familiar. Girl sets up twitter account, follows a few people, tweets twice, doesn’t get it and never goes back. Many of us have “been there done that.” It only took me another two years to come back around and try again. Once I finally got [...]]]> Guest post by Lydia Odell

The story is familiar. Girl sets up twitter account, follows a few people, tweets twice, doesn’t get it and never goes back. Many of us have “been there done that.” It only took me another two years to come back around and try again. Once I finally got the hang of hashtags, mentions, and retweets, there was no turning back. This girl was hooked.

After reading hundreds of blog posts and listening to hours of webinars, I subscribed to the 80/20 rule and believed in the “less is more” philosophy. The experts tell us 80% of the time should be spent sharing informational links, answering questions, supporting others, retweeting, showing our human side, and joining other conversations. 20% of the time can be self-promotion.

Out of the 150 I follow, 1/4 of them are abusers of the system. They send 60 or more daily tweets that are mostly self-promotional in nature, and quite frankly not very interesting or helpful. Ironically, these are also the self-proclaimed experts telling the rest of us “don’t do what I do.”

What if twitter announced a cap of 20 tweets per day? In addition, what if everyone had to agree to the 80/20 rule? What would our experience be like? I argue the following:

1. Our timelines would be sprinkled with the diverse faces we choose to follow and want to hear from
2. Our opportunity and capacity to learn from many would increase
3. More prospective tweeters would sign on, participate, enjoy the conversations and not give up
4. Tweets would be even higher quality and more creative
5. Retweets would really catch our attention
6. Only the best of the best blog posts, pictures, and videos would be shared
7. Self-promotion would be strategic and targeted
8. When we ask for help, we’d get responses
9. When we show our human side it would be done with passion and meaning
10. We’d spend more time really paying attention and listening to what others say and less focused on our own agendas

Next time you are logged in think about the marathon tweeters who seem to never sleep. Also think about how nice it would be to catch a thought or two from ALL those you follow. Let the truth be known that less is in fact more. It is definitely easier to keep up with each day.

The way we shop is changing and it’s most likely that you’ve heard of the group buying site called Groupon.  It’s a new and exciting model, but over the last little while, I’ve come to learn that it’s not exactly perfect.  And in case you haven’t heard, Groupon recently turned [...]]]> GUEST POST

The way we shop is changing and it’s most likely that you’ve heard of the group buying site called Groupon.  It’s a new and exciting model, but over the last little while, I’ve come to learn that it’s not exactly perfect.  And in case you haven’t heard, Groupon recently turned down a $6B acquisition offer from Google, which I believe was a big mistake.

My Groupon Experience

When I first signed up with Groupon, I remember being excited about all of the deals that were flooding my inbox.  The novelty of the site and huge discounts encouraged me to try a deal or two.  But then something happened – Groupon started becoming popular and suddenly I was bombarded by my friends about participating in deals.  Truth be told, it was becoming difficult managing all of these offers. And then another thing happened ­- if I tried to book an appointment with one of the deal providers I was put on a list.  That meant I had to wait three or four months just to get a massage or to try a new sushi restaurant, and that wasn’t exactly appealing.

A Small Business Experience

The overwhelming popularity of Groupon kept small businesses (SMBs) busy. But, were these businesses flourishing as a result of their Groupon experience or barely breaking even?  It turned out that some of the businesses underestimated the amount of demand that Groupon would generate.  They didn’t calculate unperceived expenses like paying staff longer hours or having enough inventory to fulfill orders.  In fact, a recent study by the Merchant Circle Report claims that 55% of SMBs are saying that they do not plan on using the Groupon service again. So perhaps the group buying model is failing to generate repeat customers?  Or maybe it’s just too costly for a small business?

Facebook Places Emerges

Geo-targeting applications like Facebook pages and Foursquare are becoming popular and SMBs are taking notice.  The same Merchant Circle Report states that 32% of these companies are currently using it and 12% are planning on using it.  Essentially, Facebook Places allows businesses to track people who are stopping by their store. It’s an evolving application and there could be some promising business opportunities.

Using Twitter

Twitter is another great tool for SMBs to leverage their fans.  A burrito company out of Boston called Boloco spread the message of a free gift to all of their customers on Twitter.  And it turns out that their fans showed up in throngs to discover that they would receive a free burrito.  The main difference here is that Boloco controlled their own expenses and revenues from this campaign and it resulted in excellent word of mouth and repeat customers.

Seriously? $6 Billion?

I’m actually not here to castigate Groupon.  I only wish the best for the company and I’m surely aware that there are a lot of fans of the site.  But I wonder if the novelty of the site has worn off?  Are the amount of deals too much for us to manage?  And from learning about the disdain of the SMBs, I wonder which businesses will be left for Groupon to target?  Will they blast through all of the SMBs and put them out of business or will they help them generate repeat business and long term customers?

As for the Google deal, a lot of people were claiming that Google was making a huge mistake by offering the deal to Groupon?  Maybe these people were right?  Or maybe Google inadvertently avoided a $6 Billion mistake? At the same time, if I was Groupon, I would have signed that deal right away.

Key Lessons

• If you’re a small business and you want to leverage the power of social media and group buying sites like Groupon, prepare for the unexpected demand and try your best to predict any unforeseen costs that could arise from excess customers
• Make sure your business is listed using Facebook Places and connect it with your company Facebook Page. Learn how here.
• Develop a following on Twitter and nurture your fans.  Treat them like gold and they will praise you relentlessly.  Come up with creative campaigns that generate buzz and word of mouth.
• If someone offers you a $6 billion dollar deal, say yes and take it:)

About the author: Zaid Rasid is the founder of the internet marketing blog Better Social* Skills. He provides expert social media, lead generation & brand awareness advice to small and medium sized businesses. For a practical look at how online marketing can work for you, visit www.zaidrasid.com or follow him on twitter: www.twitter.com/zaidrasid

Some describe noise as irrelevant content in reference to a subject matter when looking at data in a particular channel. Noise can be spam. Noise can be [...]]]> Wayne Sutton is an entrepreneur, strategist, and producer who blogs at SocialWayne.com. He is also co-founder of OurHashtag, a community and technology event company.

Some describe noise as irrelevant content in reference to a subject matter when looking at data in a particular channel. Noise can be spam. Noise can be repeat content from the echo-chamber of the world wide web. Either way, filtering the noise should be on everyone’s mind today as we’re evolving from the static web to the conversational web to the real-time in your face web.

As someone who loves technology, gadgets and information, the real-time web is a geeks’ dreamland, but it’s also a huge time waster if you don’t have filters setup. Not only do you need filters to manage information gathering and filtering information online, but you also need self control. There are plenty of tools available, but it’s how well you manage those tools to filter the noise. Below are a few of the tools that I use.

RSS Reader

To manage my RSS feeds, I use Google Reader, just like Jason and Taylor. I’m currently subscribed to over 1600 feeds, each categorized into groups by topic.  Some of my groups include WordPress, Social Media, business, mac news and mobile. My RSS feeds list continues to grow, therefore having them categorized is very important. Inside of Google Reader I have a personal star rule. I star items that I want to read later and share items that I think others will find interesting. In other words, RSS feeds are not dead, and are very important to the social web.

Social Bookmarks

For social bookmarks, I use Diigo to bookmark blog posts that I may not be subscribed to, and save them to content-based groups. I have set up groups for topics like wordpress plugins and wordpress premium themes for blog posts pertaining to each.

Real-time

Gmail Filters

Every morning the first thing I do is open my Netvibes account. This pulls all the stories from my favorite news sites [...]]]> Hermione Way (@HermioneWay) is an entrepreneur and journalist, She is founder of newspepper.com and techfluff.tv and was named as on of The Spectator’s Stars of Tomorrow.

Netvibes

Every morning the first thing I do is open my Netvibes account. This pulls all the stories from my favorite news sites (BBC, Mashable, Wired, TechCrunch, Telegraph, TheNextWeb). Not only does it pull in these news sites but it also pulls in my Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. The reason why i choose Netvibes over Google Reader is because of the layout format. It shows me all the sites in mini format, on one page just like a newspaper. It enables me to check all my news without having to leave the site.

Tweetdeck

As more and more people are becoming their own news outlets, Tweetdeck enables me to follow the streams of people i deem bring me important informative news about my industry. For example i follow Mike Butcher, iJusine and Robert Scoble’s Twitter feed to see what they are up to, who they are meeting and any links they share.

Twitter hashtags

Twitter search enables me to search for a topic or subject of interest eg. #iranelection Twitter search produces real time search results for the searched topics which enables me to find out what people are thinking/talking about right now on a topic.

The more you engage in social media, the more you realize [...]]]> Beth Harte is a marketer, blogger, speaker, communicator, thinker, connector (people & dots), adjunct professor and Community Manager for MarketingProfs. Beth’s blog, The Harte of Marketing is featured in AdAge’s Power 150. Beth also blogs for MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog.

The more you engage in social media, the more you realize that there are a lot of folks out there talking just to talk and that there are some folks that aren’t as well known, but are absolutely brilliant. Of course, brilliant is a highly subjective term. For me brilliance isn’t someone who’s like Einstein. For me a brilliant person is the one who has a unique voice, isn’t a lemming, questions the status quo, always tries to spark a conversation (no matter how small or large) with an insightful post, tweet or comment, and someone I learn something new or different from.

So, how do I cut through the clutter to find these brilliant people?

Tweetdeck

When dealing with Twitter, I like to use Tweetdeck because it allows me to create groups…lots of groups! I create groups of friends, people who tweet on certain topics, keywords – you name it!
The more I can slice and dice (I am a marketer, after all), the more I can find those brilliant people and nuggets of information that they might be sharing.

BackType

BackType is a cool site that allows you to keep track of your comments, people who have commented about you and, more importantly, the comments that people you follow leave for others. BackType also allows you to search on keywords, again, very helpful to a marketer. The best part about BackType is I can see where the people I follow leave comments, which helps me to find blogs or smart folks that I may not have known about.

Google Reader

I’d be lost without my Google Reader. Every time I find a new blog using the tools above, I add it to my Google Reader. You can imagine that over time, I have a TON of blogs bookmarked. Every morning, I change the reader to the “All Items” view and I scroll down all the posts, not by blogger…but by date. Those with the best or intriguing titles win my attention. Again, I also look for posts on topics, people’s names, and information I might not have had access to previously.

These tools might seem basic, and perhaps not so cool, but for a marketer, they relieve a lot of the time burden that social media places on us.

Each one of us makes a very personal decision about how to find, filter and understand information to help us live our lives and succeed in our careers. Our goals, interests and personal [...]]]> Guest blog post by Taylor Davidson (@tdavidson); innovation, photography, travel and entrepreneurship, in some continually shifting combination and order.

Each one of us makes a very personal decision about how to find, filter and understand information to help us live our lives and succeed in our careers. Our goals, interests and personal styles shape what, why and how we sift through the content and context created by the maze of interactions on the web. Instead of focusing on the strategies and tactics that I use to filter the web, consider my own methods and tools as just the best way that I know how, right now, to achieve what I want; like all of us, I’m always looking for ideas and ways to improve.

Considerations and Creating a General Philosophy

Before you think about tools, think about you and what you want to achieve: how much time do you have to devote to consuming information? How much noise is “too much” for you? What methods have you tried, for how long, and what has been successful for you? What networks do you use to connect to people and information? What do you want to do with the information, insights and (hopefully) knowledge that passes through your filters? For example, do you want to find new sources of information, cut out repetitive sources, reduce the time you spend online, spend more time creating, automate your filters, focus on breaking news or in-depth, timeless analysis?

Think about these questions to create your own strategies and goals, but I’ll start with outlining my general philosophy:

• I devote an hour or two a day to reading news and in-depth analysis, and I like following a range of topics and a wide range of people.
• I’m willing to dig through a fair amount of noise to find great signals.
• I try to use algorithms and people to curate my news; I use a mix of searches and popularity-ranking algorithms to find information, but I depend on people to filter content and add their own analysis and point of view.
• I do not read newspapers or major primary news sources; again, I depend on interesting people to find what I should read.
• I feel no need to read everything that pops through my filters; if it’s important enough, it will find me again eventually.
• I’m not terribly concerned with keeping up with the real-time web; it often takes a bit of time to truly process new information and understand the second-order impacts.
• I love to engage bloggers and comment on posts in order to learn, refine my thoughts, and dig deeper into topics with knowledgeable people.
• I want to structure and pass on the information that I find in a way that goes beyond just passing along information but adds something to the conversation, whether it’s an insight, a connection between bits of information or people, or simple something too interesting not to share with my friends.

Given the philosophy, how do I do it?

Using Feeds to Follow People: Blogs, Backtype, Twitter

Blogs continue to be the focus of my filtering efforts due to my focus on long-form content, but as more and more content and interactions have shifted to micro-interactions I find myself needing to use more platforms to find information, links and people.

I use Backtype to create RSS feeds of searches through comments for terms and topics of interest, but I truly enjoy following the comment streams (using RSS feeds) from individuals as a way to see what is truly important to them.

I use Twitter to find links to information, but I don’t use any special tools or tactics other than dipping into the stream from time to time. I use feeds from Twitter search to follow certain keywords, but I also follow @ replies to certain people to see who is talking to them or sharing information with them.

Organizing the Feeds: Google Reader and PostRank

I know many people have sworn off RSS, but I continue to use RSS and RSS readers (my personal choice: Google Reader) as a way to consolidate the streams of information. I use RSS to bring to me a mix of blogs, searches and Google Alerts to follow the web, and I use categories in Google Reader to attempt to structure the information . I have a “best” category to follow the sources I find to be consistently interesting and a mixture of other categories organized into different topics or goals. This is far from static: I add and remove feeds, blogs, categories constantly to find new sources of information and new ways to organize.

Additionally I use PostRank and AideRSS’s Google Reader Firefox extension to integrate PostRank with Google Reader in an attempt to figure out which posts are “can’t-miss”; but given that I am open to sifting through a lot of noise and that I depend on many people that do not have a huge following, I find Postrank isn’t the best fit for my own filtering strategies. I’ve tested BlogRollr and Filtrbox to find and filter information, but I’m always on the lookout for new algorithms and methods for adding more “relevance” and context to my filtering tactics.

Yes, that’s a simple set of tools, somewhat inefficient and ripe for over-consumption, but the benefits from depending on loose networks and “structuring serendipity” to introduce me to great concepts, insights and people is simply too great to give up … yet.

We all cobble together our own method of sorting and filtering through the noise.

The “How I Filter The Noise” [...]]]> The vast amounts of information available online for any subject can get overwhelming quickly. As a self confessed news junkie, I dive in every day and devour massive amounts of news. Still, it becomes daunting.

We all cobble together our own method of sorting and filtering through the noise.

The “How I Filter The Noise” guest blog post series will is meant to be an insight with a few examples of how people find their way through such a wild web of content. Hopefully we can all learn a little bit. Thanks to the half dozen guest bloggers that will be joining me in sharing their filter strategies over the next week or two. Look for their posts soon.

I Stopped Tracking EVERYTHING

My Google Reader, a key to almost all filtering strategies, use to be full of Mashable, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, and several other massive tech and social media blogs. Each of these blogs ramp up a dozen or two posts a day. At one point I was trying to skim through hundreds of blog posts and news articles each day. Trying to take in this amount of information was impossible. All I ended up doing is making it more difficult to find the news I cared the most about.

My middle ground was only subscribing to about 6 of the 30-40 bloggers that write for these sites – The ones who I thought touched on the most relevant information for me. This was a large improvement but still did not give me the relevance I was seeking.

I Steal My Reading List from Friends

Within Google Reader, you subscribe to articles that your friends share, as opposed to standard RSS feeds. I have been using this feature more and more recently and find it does wonders for screening quality content. I am more or less stealing the reading lists of my friends.

Not all my friends use this feature and not all of the ones that do share things I care about. But I have focused on about a dozen folks who share great stuff almost daily, but not so much content that it overwhelms me.

I Focus With A Second Twitter Account

Yes I follow somewhere near 30 thousand people on Twitter, and no I do not listen to all of them. I, of course, filter.

My main filter on Twitter is a second personal Twitter account where I follow about 150 people.

The second Twitter account is what I use to listen to the people I most care about. It is comprised of designers, social media thought leaders, friends, and people in my home town of Charlotte. It is my go to pulse for the internet. I use Tweetie on the iPhone and Tweetdeck on my desktop to easily listen from this second account, while still being able to reply from my main, public Twitter account, @jakrose.

I Find The Highlights

For technology I use Techmeme. They rarely miss a big tech story and usually have it hours or days before any other news outlet. Tweetmeme is fast becoming a good solution for this too. For politics I browse Politico. For any other subject I either check Digg‘s specific categories or Twitter Search.

That is it. Find valuable friends on Google Reader. Use a focused second Twitter account. And find a way to catch the highlights.

Copywriting is one of those careers that most people don’t understand.

That’s ok, most copywriters don’t understand it either. One day we may be [...]]]> Jim Mitchem is a copywriter and advertising professional in Charlotte, NC at smashcommunications. Smash is a real advertising agency operating in a virtual work environment.

Copywriting and Social Media

Copywriting is one of those careers that most people don’t understand.

That’s ok, most copywriters don’t understand it either. One day we may be tasked with developing a tagline for a national appeal to millions, and the next we’re writing a mission statement for a local mom-and-pop.

In the past, traditional advertising has provided a range of passive media for copywriters to engaging a specific audience. Social Media (SM) changes everything. No longer is it a one-way conversation between brand and constituency. SM is an active conversation.

Whether it’s providing topical content for a corporate blog, or engaging an audience in real-time via Twitter, the need for effective copywriting is more important today than ever.

The problem is that it’s virtually impossible for every company involved in SM to have a skilled copywriter on staff. Thankfully, there are some universal concepts that anyone using Social media can employ.

Be Polite

When’s the last time the guy at the fast food restaurant smiled and thanked you for buying the cheeseburger combo? Believe it or not, there was once a time when being polite was expected of everyone who actively engaged with a brand’s audience. Phrases like, Thank You, Please and Can I Help You were staples of all customer service. And while it may be too late to reformat a whole generation to making eye contact and thanking someone while you hand them their change, SM presents the opportunity to rebuild how brands service customers. Be polite. Smile when you write.

Respect Language

People think in fragments. They just do. And every audience has a certain vernacular from which to engage in dialogue. Thus, respecting the language is less about the rules of grammar, and more about the rules of spelling. If there’s one thing you take from this post it should be that the quickest way to discredit your brand is to routinely misspell words. If you question the spelling of a word, look it up. If you have to guess, change the word. People notice.

One Word: Yes.

The core purpose of all copywriting is to persuade an audience to think or act favorably. One way to ensure that this happens is to use positive language in conversation. And the most positive word known to man is Yes. Use positive language in your dialogue and you’re going to make people happy. Or, as they say at the sales conventions, ‘all the little yeses add up to the big yes.’

Check out @Jetblue and @TraderJoes on Twitter for good examples of these concepts.

The key is not to try and be witty and clever – leave that to the copywriters. Instead, focus on being genuinely polite, helpful and positive and you’ll be well on your way to developing a smart conversation strategy for your Social Media efforts.

SERIES Social Media Skills — Advertising, SEO, PR, Graphic Design, Copywriting, and more…