Social Media Optimization

"Save time managing your status update for all your social networks.
Post updates by group to separate work and play.
Aggregate and organize your friend's feeds."

Another of the many social media integration tools.

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"Update Twitter With a Keyword Bookmark"

This is a way to quickly enter a tweet from your browser.

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"what we care about is services that can generate a Twitter background free of charge and make them look good. That’s what this roundup is about, 5 free online generators to make your Twitter backgrounds stand out, and there is a bonus, a useful online tool to check how your Twitter background looks in different screen resolutions."

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"16 Ways to Track Links Shared on Twitter or Friendfeed"

Find ways to know who is clicking on your links in Twitter.

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"Twitter applications, twitter apps - Twapps!
Showcasing 105 Twitter apps from the twittersphere!"

Nice visual display of Twitter Apps.

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"Everyday I receive an email from somebody about how their account was hacked, how a friend tagged them in the photo and they want a way to avoid it, as well as a number of other complications related to their privacy on Facebook. Over the weekend one individual contacted me to let me know that he would be removing me as a friend from Facebook because he was “going to make a shift with my Facebook use - going to just mostly family stuff.”"

A must read article for Facebook management.

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"Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap.Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap."

Send your message from anywhere. Send it everywhere.

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"Here are some egregious sins that you must not perform on social media sites. Avoid these violations and learn how to manage and maintain online relationships on a variety of popular social media sites."

A set of rules for the popular social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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"One thing I don’t hear a lot of social media consultants/experts/gurus or whatever talk about is starting the social media strategy process. ... I say start with your SEO and your analytics. Let me explain."

Good article with some original thinking.

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"Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll build three different scenarios out, and give you the starting points for what I’d do with social media if I were in these steps"

How to get started in Social Media.

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"So, what I’m positing here is: maybe it’s better to be a strong member of a few networks than a weak member of a lot of networks. Don’t kill yourself joining and participating in everything. Always keep an eye on what’s new, but nurture your key networks. Grow them and let them provide."

I think this is very important. Signing up for multiple social networks is not usually effective.

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"I think it’s important to focus on the key components of what it takes to deploy an effective social media strategy individually and as a whole. By understanding the social web as it relates to fundamental marketing principles, tactics, tools and best practices, you can create a framework for the development of a working strategy."

A sound article on Social Media.

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"I've come to believe, though, that the gut instinct is correct: the existing advertising model is inherently unprofitable and unsustainable for a social media service"

This is a find well reasoned article.

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"Many companies are intrigued by the concept of social media, but have no idea how to actually integrate it into business practices. In an earlier post, we explored one approach to putting a simple social media plan in place."

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"BuddyPress will transform a vanilla installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform."

One to watch.

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"Look, I don't really think that the mySpaces and Facebooks of the world are that important for the typical small business as they stand today. There may be very practical business reasons for some to actually use these and other, what are called social networks, for business gain, but most people that have jumped on the social network bandwagon have found themselves left with a 'is this all there is' kind of feeling."

Excellent tips for getting started.

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"The current proliferation of social media sites is the most pervasive phenomenon on the Internet today. Not since the dot.com explosion has the there been an Internet trend that is so widespread in its popularity. The comparison with the dot.com growth is in fact one that is made by many industry observers, and while there are a number of clear similarities, there are also some important differences."

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"I decided to make a list of the Top 10 Objections to New Online Tools and What You Can Say in Response. I surveyed my nearly 1300 friends on Twitter and got all kinds of thoughtful replies."

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"Last year saw the arrival of online social media. If you operate a website or blog, you would be well advised to realign your site to exploit the popular social media sites for increased traffic.

You should also introduce social media components to your site because web users are experiencing these new forms of interaction on more and more sites and they will have an expectation of the same from your site too."

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"A list of companies and services that provide live, streaming, web video:"

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"The fundamental distinctions between social media and the things that preceded are these:"

Steve Boyd gives concise clarity on social media.

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"Glossary of social media"

Nice start to a Social Media Glossary. They would welcome help.

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"Here is a list of some of the start-ups and large companies that produce systems that could be used to build a read/write Intranet."

List of companies that produce systems that could produce an Intranet of a Social Media site.

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"After 8 months of development we are ready to release Drupal 5.0 to the world. Today is also Drupal's 6th birthday, so the timing could not be more perfect. Drupal 4.0 was released in 2002 and finally we feel confident to increase the major version number from 4 to 5."

Create a Social Media site using Drupal.

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"Chris Heuer Presentation at Search Insider Summit"

Excellent presentation on Social Media Optimization, even though Chris does not use that term.

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The Wisdom of Crowds: "In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. "

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"YouTube: Users revolting against social media sites"

Social Media site content is provided by users. What happens when the users who built the site get upset with the site?

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"Cemetery 2.0: networked tombstones
Elliott Malkin has memorialized his great-grandfather with something he calls Cemetery 2.0: a networked tombstone connected to a variety of serialized information resources about his life."

One idea about what to do about your internet presence after you pass on.

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"Online social networking and professional networking software"

One of several vendors providing software and services for Social Networking.

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You can add code to blog posts and websites to enable readers to add entries to Social Media sites.

There are a number of options to help with this

1. Socializer - The Socializer is a website that eases links to other sites. The website links to Socializer; from there one can add to Social Media sites.
2. Social Bookmark Link Creator - This site creates HTML that can be added to Blogs so that entries can be shared to Social Media sites.
3. Only Wire - If you share with OnlyWire website, it propagates to a list of other Social Bookmarking sites.
4. Sociable - Downloadable software that adds functionality to a blog that generates a series of links to Social Media sites.
5. Social Bookmarks - Downloadable software that is a plugin for Wordpress that adds links to Social Media sites.
6. Social Bookmark Creator - Create link list or drop down menu
   

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Social Media - the 1% rule.

Groups	Creatives	Contributors	Consumers
Percentage	1%	19%	80%
In general	Those that initiate, upload, and annotate content. They kill spam, get rid of duplicates, and help others.	Those that vote, comment, add friends, and send messages.	Those that enjoy the content without contributing
Motivation	They need to be motivated with recognition, fun, or achievement.	They need creatives to react to.
Social News like Netscape	The ones who put in the stories.	Those that add comments and vote.	Those that enjoy the news.
Social Content like YouTube	.05% upload videos.	Those that comment, rate and vote.	Those that enjoy the videos.
WidiPedia	1.8% write 79% of the articles.	Those that correct content.	Those that read the content.

Reference

• Jason Calacanis : The three C's (or the 1, 19, and 80%) of social media (one more time)
• Charles Arthur : What is the 1% rule?

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Tagging: Folksonomies and Taxonomies

Taxonomies and Folksonomies are ways or organizing or classifying things.

Taxonomies are organization schemes from the top down. Taxonomies are usually organized in advance.

Taxonomies examples:

• Internet Directories are organized lists of categories.
• Windows Directories are organized into folders.

Folksonomies are organization schemes from the bottom up.

• Folksonomies are created by the folks.
• Folksonomies are used by Social Media.

Tagging is a type of folksonomy.

• As people add entities to Social Media sites, they give it a tag. The tags are a bottom up, chaotic way to group data.
• All entities with the same tag become a group.
• A group of tags is called a tag cloud.

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Types of Social Media

1. Social Networking (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo)
   
2. Social Bookmarking (del.icio.us)
   
3. Social News (Digg, Netscape)
   
4. Social Content (Flickr, YouTube)
5. Wikis (Wikipedia)
   
6. Groups, Mailing Lists, Bulletin Boards, Message Boards
7. Blogs, Podcasts, Vlogs, Netcasts, Audiocasts, Videocasts
8. Massively Multiplayer Online Game

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Social Media Optimization - Rules

Social Media Optimization is enhancing your Internet Presence by effectively using Social Media, including social networking, social bookmarking, blogs, wikis, groups, and other social media.

Various authors have penned rules for Social Media Optimization. It is appropriate that it is a group effort. The following articles start the discussion on rules.

Rules 1-5: 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO) Rohit Bhargava
Rules 6-7: Rules of Social Media Optimization Jeremiah Owyang
Rules 8-11: Introduction to Social Media Optimization Cameron Olthuis
Rules 12-13: Social Media Optimization : 13 Rules of SMO Loren Baker
Rules 14-16: New Rules for Social Media Optimization Lee Odden

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup
6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you
7. Reward helpful and valuable users
8. Participate
9. Know how to target your audience
10. Create content
11. Be real
12. Don’t forget your roots, be humble
13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh
14. Develop a SMO strategy
15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely
16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices

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In the History of the Internet, getting found was always important to businesses and webmasters.

1) Getting found was originally getting linked to by directories and portals. Two students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, started an Internet directory while at Stanford and then started the company Yahoo! in 1995.
Organization: Taxonomy

2) Then getting found was dependent upon Search Engines. Two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, studied search and search engines while at Stanford and then left to start Google in 1998. Working to get found on search engines is called Search Engine Optimization.
Organization: Complete Index

3) Then two men, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, founded MySpace in 2004. MySpace is one of the major Social Media sites. Learning how to promote internet presence by using Social Media sites is called Social Media Optimization.
Two men, Chad Hurley, 29, left, and Steven Chen, 27. founded YouTube, Social Media Content site in 2005.
Organization: Folksonomy and Tagging

The top ten Internet sites include Yahoo, Google, and MySpace. It is important to businesses that they use all the techniques represented by these companies to enhance their Internet Presence.

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What is Social Media

Social Media includes those Websites and Blogs on the Internet that are created by the same people that consume them.

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Websites like

• IBM
• Microsoft
• New York Times
• Coca-Cola
• Encyclopedia Britannica
  

are created, written, and supported by the companies. There are places that consumers can respond, vote, fill out a form, or leave a comment, but the websites are created by the organizations. They are not Social Media.

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Other websites like

• YouTube - Videos
• Flickr - Photographs
• Delicious - BookMarks
• MySpace - Profiles and Interaction
• WikiPedia - Wiki Encyclopedia
  

are all Social Media. The content is not generated by the company. The company provides a virtual warehouse that is filled by those that use the system.

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Social Media Websites characteristics.

• The content is created and consumed by the same people.
  
• Contributions, feedback and comments are encouraged.
  
• Communities and Connection are enabled.
• Tagging is not requred but it is often used.
  

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A couple of good articles:

• Social Media on Wikipedia
• What is Social Media? An e-book from Spannerworks

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This blog is a place to capture thoughts, ideas, and links about Social Media, and particularly how to optimize the use of Social Media to promote a business or organization.

It used to be that a website was the major Internet presence for an organization: now the website is just one component of many.

Internet presence now includes

• Websites
• Blogs
• RSS Feeds
• Any Podcasts or Video Casts
  

Internet presence now includes the accumulated profiles and information on Social Media sites like

• Social Networking Sites
  
• Social Bookmarking Sites
  
• Wikis
• Groups

Internet presence now includes the accumulated back links to your Websites or Blogs from

• Directories
• Other blogs
• Other websites

Internet presence now includes the accumulated history of Internet Activity

• Attention data
• Shopping data
• Reviews and Comments

This blog will explore optimizing Social Media to enhance Internet Presence.

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