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The Web Development Blog is moving!
23 Feb 2009, 12:55 pm |
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As some of you have heard, I'm leaving University Marketing and Communications, and will be doing freelance Web design and consulting. But that doesn't mean I'll stop blogging. It just means that I'm moving the blog to a new location at http://www.heidicool.com/blog/. For the past month I've been cross-posting entries to both locations, and am now ready to shift things over to a new site which includes the Web Development Blog as well as a project portfolio and other information related to my Web development background and philosophy. There you will be able to see which social media services I use—and why, peruse what I've been reading in the blogosphere and, of course, continue reading my blog entries on Web development, marketing and related subjects. I will continue to post on an array of topics geared to academic, corporate and non-profit Web developers, bloggers, content managers, marketers and anyone else with an interest in the Web. Articles will include the usual mix of content, marketing, social media and code such as:
You can also expect a few marketing entries about the move, as I learn how long it takes to rebuild readership in the new location. Hopefully it will be an interesting case study. If you are currently subscribed to the blog entries or comments, you can update your subscriptions with these feeds:Thank you for reading! Read more >> 
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MKTG 101: Web Content Should Serve Visitor Needs
15 Feb 2009, 10:05 am |
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Some new Twitter users want to help me get rich, find peace with my life and help me tap my inner invisible pink unicorn to be spiritually one with the universe. I know this because they post links telling me they can make this happen if I buy their books and CD's or read their blogs. They just never tell me exactly HOW this is supposed to happen. Instead they babble repetitively in varying sized and colored typefaces, repeating their promises over and over again, but with slightly different wording. They do this because they read somewhere that "long-form" copy is persuasive and sells. I'm not buying it. If you're in business for the long run, no matter the field, content that merely badgers readers into buying your whatsits and whatnots is not the solution. It may help you sell a short run of something, but it won't establish a relationship with your clients, build a solid customer base or solidify your branding strategy. So what will? You have goals, but so do your site visitors.People visit our sites for a reason. They have a need they wish to fill. After having searched Google, discovered your site on StumbleUpon, followed a link from a source they trust or typed in the link they saw on your business card, they've come to your site in the hopes that you can fill their needs. This is true whether you are peddling products, services or information. For example, your visitors may need to:
If your site can serve that need, then you need to make this clear right away. As soon as they see your home page, or some interior page they've landed upon, they should know if you provide what they seek. If your site isn't meant for them, they can move on. If your site appears to offer what they seek, they will stay a bit longer to find out if your offering is the one most appropriate to their specific needs. Give readers the tools they need to make an informed purchasing decision.Now that your visitor has decided to explore your site, you need to give him or her the information needed to make a decision. Doing this is merely a matter of offering content that accurately conveys the features and benefits of your product or service. This will allow your readers to judge the quality of what you offer, and determine if that offer will serve their specific need. How much information your reader requires depends on your offering. If a visitor is picking a graduate school, he or she will want to know about the faculty, the facilities, fellow students, courses offered etc. This is a big decision that requires making a well-informed choice. If your visitor has a hankering for Italian food, then your restaurant menu, location, hours and some photos (of both food and the restaurant) will probably suffice. Imagine yourself in the role of your visitor. Let's say you're looking for information about Web marketing. If you are reading this sentence then you've already made a decision. You've decided to read this entry and you've stuck around past the first few paragraphs. If you'd been looking for information on developing Web sites with AJAX you'd have already left. People talk about Web content in terms of stickiness—methods they can use to keep visitors on the site or encourage them to return in the future. But that's not an end goal. It's merely a tactic used in the hopes that long or repeated visits will encourage readers to buy, or otherwise consume, our stuff. If we provide content that let's visitors make an informed decision, then we've done our job. We've established trust and given them the tools they need to choose wisely. If they like our program, skin cream, menu, Web advice they'll buy/eat/read it now and come back for more later. By giving visitors the information they seek, we serve both their goals and ours, while forging customer relationships that can last well into the future. Web Content Development Resources
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MKTG 101: Social Media Marketing is still marketing—know your audience
29 Jan 2009, 12:18 pm |
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Social Media Marketing is hip. It seems like everyone wants to get involved, call themselves an expert and use the magical powers of social media to triple sales, recruit students, etc. But social media isn't magic. Social media, like advertising, direct mail and telemarketing is but one of many tools in the marketer's toolbox. Like any tool it needs to be used in the proper context—in conjunction with other marketing strategies. As such social media—when used for marketing—still relies on basic marketing principles such as understanding your target audience, the features and benefits of your product or service, brand awareness and so forth. Lately I've noticed that a great number of online marketers are unfamiliar with these marketing basics. So today I'd like discuss the importance of understanding your target audience. On the most basic level this is a fairly intuitive process. If you are marketing a new glow-in-the-dark dog-collar with a built in GPS unit, then you can guess that your core audience will consist of:
Your secondary audience may also include:
Targeting the market: The group of 'dog owners' is too broad to reach effectively.Your product will not appeal to everyone on the planet who has a dog, so there is no point in spending the time and money it would take to reach all of them. For example, I recently mentioned the word "dog" in a Tweet (a message I posted on Twitter.) Within 2 minutes I received an e-mail saying that person X was now following me on Twitter. (X had probably set up a search on "dog" and was auto-following anyone who mentioned the word.) I clicked on the link to see who person X might be and discovered that he is marketing some sort of dog-related service. Being currently dogless and unclear of the mission of his site, I neither signed up for the service nor followed X back on Twitter. Instead I posted a brief rant to friends on why following everyone mentioning the word "dog" was not a viable marketing tactic. X missed out for three reasons.
Targeting the market: who among these groups would be most likely to buy your collar?In the long run we'll make more sales if we can match our product to customers who have a desire or need for that product. A good way to examine this need is to explore the features. Our collar:
Our collar has practical rather than decorative features. While it comes in a variety of colors, it's not a huge variety and none feature rhinestones. From this alone we can guess that it will not appeal to small dog owners who dress up their pets in decorative outfits. It's rugged and easy to use and may appeal to hunters and other owners of medium to large dogs, especially working breeds. Market research can help us segment the population further.We may learn that certain breeds are more likely to wander and their owners would desire such a collar. Perhaps owners of Golden Retrievers are 50% more likely to buy multiple collars for their dog than German Shepherd owners. If we have an existing customer base for related products we can analyze past purchases to look for buying patterns that may relate to our new product. If our Fluffy Anti Flea shampoo buyers have been good collar purchasers in the past, while our dog brush buyers have not, then we should promote our collar to the shampoo buyers. Our market research team can also offer additional demographic information that may help us fine-tune our lists. Perhaps college-educated Volvo drivers replace their dog collars 50% more often than Cadillac drivers. If such correlations exist, we may want to consider those as well. The more we learn about dog-collar buying patterns the more likely we are to narrow our audience down to the group most likely to be interested in our product—while ensuring that there are enough potential buyers in that group for us to make a profit. We've identified and fine-tuned the market(s): how do we reach them?Let's say we've decided to target college-educated Volvo drivers with Golden Retrievers as one of our market segments. We've discovered that we can buy mailing lists for this group, that they watch the Discovery Channel and regularly buy from L.L. Bean. Accordingly we might want to initiate a direct mail campaign that we send to the list, advertise on the right shows on the Discovery Channel and make an arrangement with L.L. Bean to distribute the product through their catalog. As our focus, today, is on social media let's assume we already have these (and other) strategies in place. Now we want to supplement these efforts through social media. Where do these people spend their time online?By now we've learned something of the demographic make-up of our target audience. We know they've gone to college and have enough disposable income to afford Volvos. Perhaps we've also discovered that their average age is 35-60 and they tend to live near major metropolitan areas. A little research on the more popular social media services may show us that we're more likely to find these people on Facebook and Twitter than on MySpace. Our audience is easy to find on Facebook.Facebook skews a bit younger than our target age, but a quick search shows there are over 500 groups relating to Golden Retrievers on Facebook. This may then be a good place to put up a Facebook page, to advertise, and to participate in discussions about dogs and accessories. It will take time, but it might be worth reviewing the various groups and selecting a few active ones to join. There we can participate in conversations and even talk about our dog collars, so long as remember that social media is about people and not just about our products. Tracking them down on Twitter will be more labor-intensive.Twitter searches on Volvos and Golden Retrievers pull up many hits, but many of these won't be relevant to our project. Twitter conversations aren't as easily segmented by topic as they are on Facebook or StumbleUpon. Choosing who to follow on Twitter will take more research. We could do several additional searches on "dog collar" "hunting dog," etc. By carefully reading through these results we can pick people one-by-one that may fit our audience. Services such as Twellow can help us find people by categories, such as "animal welfare" that may give us leads. We should also look into dog-related associations, dog shows and related groups that may be communicating about a related topic through the use of a Twitter Hashtag such as #dog. Ideally you would want something more specific, but there are countless Twitter services and tools available to help you with your research. Finding the right people and forging those connections on Twitter takes time. This is not a place to push our product, but a place for us to join a community in which we can share ideas on topics of common interest. It's important to remember that people will only follow us back if we have something worthwhile to say. Before following any of them, we have to make sure that we've posted some worthwhile Tweets—most of which are not about our new collar. Here we want to keep it human. We can post Tweets about our own dog, dog-training tips, and observations about life in general that have nothing to do with dogs. If we offer interesting insights and links that might intrigue members of our audience and respond to questions within our areas of expertise we'll forge far stronger connections than we would if we treated our Twitter stream as an advertising platform. Define your audience then connect with them on their terms.Taking the time to narrow your audience to an easily defined niche makes marketing more cost effective. People think of social media as being a free alternative to traditional advertising or direct mail, but making successful connections requires time and labor. By targeting your audience you can focus that labor on connecting with the people who matter most to your goals. Once you've found that audience you need to connect with them on their own terms if you want to achieve any level of success. Study the usage patterns of the social media services/platforms you intend to use. Find out how your audience uses these tools, then follow their lead. If you put as much effort into tailoring your communication methods to your market as you put into developing a product or service that suits their needs you'll have a far better chance of establishing connections than you would with a more generic approach. It doesn't take magic, just time, research and work. Market Segmentation, Demographics and Social Media Marketing Resources
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2 Top 5 Lists = 1 Top Ten List: My most read Web Development Blog entries from 2008
11 Jan 2009, 8:26 pm |
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Now that the New Year has been rung in, it seems that the meme of the moment is to blog about the year in review. So I thought I'd follow suit. I looked over my blog entries to see if I'd trended towards any new themes for 2008. While I have written more on social media this year (who hasn't?) I quickly noted that my topics overall continued to range across a wide array of Web related subjects. Next I looked at my stats to see which articles were getting the most traffic and comments. As it happens the most read article of 2008 was also the most read article of 2007. While quick trendy subjects such as Plurk: Social Media Marketing in Action brought in new readers and temporary traffic spikes, the more timeless subjects such as writing, marketing and navigation were the ones that drew in the most readers overall. So, instead of presenting you with my top 10 articles of 2008, I've decided to break them up into 2 groups, the top 5 written in 2008 and the top 5 from year's past that continue to draw readers—even with the passage of time. Top 5 Web Development Blog Entries written in 2008
Top 5 Web Development Blog Entries read in 2008
ConclusionsThe Web is constantly evolving and we're all trying to keep up with the latest trends and technologies. But no matter which platform we use to publish, which strategies we apply, it always seems to come back to the basics. The most basic element of the Web is content. While video and audio continue to build in popularity, the core of our content is still composed of words. That's probably why the Voice and Tone article was read more than any other. You, my readers, understand the importance of fundamentals over the latest fad. I think that is why—for the most part—the most popular subjects on this blog are the ones that address these basic strategies, those that can be applied now and in the future. In 2009 I expect to be writing more on social media topics such as Facebook and Twitter, but I'll also be writing more about content and general marketing principles, the foundations we build upon in all of our Web-based endeavors. What about you? If you're a blogger what will you focus on in 2009? If you're a regular (or new) reader, what would you like to see here? Happy New Year! P.S. Read more of my thoughts on social media and the Web on AriwriterAri Herzog recently interviewed me for his blog, AriWriter: Strategies and tips on social media and online marketing. You can read the full article, Guest Interview with Heidi Cool: How a University Experiments with Social Media, online.
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Social Media is People (but more enriching than Soylent Green*)
29 Dec 2008, 6:43 pm |
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Everyone wants to know how to take advantage of social media. Whether it's to promote a business or an academic program, it's not unusual to hear people as, "How should we be using Twitter?" or "What should we do with Facebook?" The questions often focus on the tools, but as I've mentioned before, in Social Media: Your Interactive Information Resource, social media is about making connections—human connections. While this has been apparent to me for sometime, it's become increasingly clear over the past month. So rather than writing a typical how-to or advice article, today I'll just tell you about two recent events that really drive this message home. Heidi thinks the veil between the 'brick and mortar' world and the 'cyber world' becomes more elusive each day.
That's what I wrote as my Facebook status message when I returned home from the Cleveland Social Media Club party on December 10. As the name suggests the Cleveland SMC is "a community for the champions of Social Media and those seeking to learn." (If you live in Northeast Ohio and work with, or are interested in, social media you should join.) What makes this group different from many online communities is the regional nature of it. We're all here so we can actually meet in person. As such they've already had several events, but this was the first one that I attended. My friends tell me that I'm no longer shy, but I am an introvert, so I have to admit I was just a wee bit nervous. Although I knew a few people in the group—either in person or online—many were unknown, or at best vague cyber-acquaintances. Thus I wasn't sure how well I'd handle the small talk. As it turns out it wasn't a problem. I knew the host, Dave Stack, from the real world, his best friend is friends with one of my best friends, I'd previously met a few folks from a Cleveland bloggers meet-up, and George Nemeth was there and George knows everybody and is more than happy to make introductions. Within no time I felt as at ease as I would have with people I'd known much longer. I met some great people and look forward to seeing them again at a future event. But I don't have to wait until the next event to continue the conversations. Members of Cleveland SMC can friend each other and converse on that site, but we also post our other profiles there. Since the event I've connected with several of them on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. And thus the conversations continue. It doesn't matter if/when we meet again face-to-face. It doesn't matter if one person prefers Twitter and another prefers Facebook. Once the connection is made it can be continued on any one or more of the online services available. Cleveland Social Media Club (on Ning) provides an information hub, but it's also enabled us to easily create multiple redundant pathways to one another. Thus, if one service goes down, the connections aren't lost, we still have other channels available. When a service goes down: the demise of Pownce
While multiple channels are available, Pownce was my social media tool of choice. Alas, in early December, Leah Culver announced that Pownce would be shutting down on December 15. Pownce was the service that hooked me on social media. It's where I learned that you could forge real connections online. Pownce gave me access not only to my peers but also to leaders in the field. If I went to Pownce with an idea I had about a Web project I wasn't getting feedback from just anybody. I was getting feedback from people in all areas of the business—ranging from the managing director of Octane Interactive, Wayne Smallman, to the lead designer at Digg, Daniel Burka. Pownce was an incredible resource. Of course, it wasn't all about work. Powncers shared photos, absurd videos and thought-provoking articles while also conversing about everything from politics to bacon. My friends group contained liberals and republicans, atheists and born-agains and people from several different continents and cultures. But we had our geekiness in common, so everyone played nicely together in the sandbox. As we shared media and stories, personal experiences and jokes we got to know each other on many levels, much as one does in the brick and mortar world. By the time December rolled around we'd become a pretty tight community. Then we heard about the shutdown. As you can imagine, the community reeled. Where would we go? What would we do? Sure we're on Twitter, but how can you discuss global warming or share pierogie recipes in 140 characters? It was clear, the sky was falling and there was very little we could do about it. Or was there? A community comes togetherAll gnashing of teeth and wailing aside (and yes there was a lot of that) one of the first things people did was to start announcing where else they could be found. Pownce always made it easy to post our other profile addresses on the site, but now people were indicating where their primary addresses would be. People posted their addresses for Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed. People shared e-mails. One fellow declared that he preferred IM and shared 5 different ways to connect with him that way. We had this information, we had the ability to download our data, but it was clear that we were scattering into the wind. In my panic, I decided I needed to create a new, possibly temporary home for us, someplace that would still exist after December 15, where we could continue to share our contact information. Given that I was already familiar with Ning, I created Pownce Refugees, a place to keep the community alive after Pownce shutdown.
At the time I really wasn't certain about my long term goals, I just needed something I could launch quickly. I configured the page to use the colors from the Pownce home page, enabled some features that I thought might be useful and spread the word. As I and others started playing with it I added RSS feeds of Pownce mentions on Twitter, the Pownce Exiles Room on FriendFeed, the Pownce Exiles group on Vox, Pownce in the news and so forth. This way I thought we could use this page to keep track of Pownce-related activity elsewhere. The next thing I did was to start creating groups for Pownce theme days. On Pownce we would often post content related to a day's theme. Thus we had Music Video Monday, Wordle Wednesday, Foto Friday and so forth. It sounds silly, but it was a good way to get new people involved as it gave them ideas on things to post. When you are new to social networking, it can be intimidating, but theme days provided some great starting points. As I was busy priming the pump with groups and content, people started joining. Then they told other people to join. They spread the word on Twitter and other places, and within no time we had more than 100 members. 100? That's not much, Twitter has 6 million users100 isn't much (we're now at 139), but it was enough to begin a new community. It was also enough to catch the attention of the Ning staff. As a result of our rapid growth, they featured us on the Ning Blog in an article entitled, Former Pownce members find a new home. This was actually a fairly major accomplishment as Ning is a rather large enterprise. In April 2008 there were over 230,000 networks on Ning, and they were growing at over 1,000 per day. Only 3-4 are featured on the blog in any given day. The other good news was our traffic. I created Pownce Refugees on December 1, and installed the analytics on December 6. As of December 15 (Pownce shut-down) we had
By way of comparison this blog was 20 months old by the time it started generating that level of traffic. Our traffic sources also told an interesting story.
The top referring sites were Pownce, Stumbleupon, Gmail, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook (I'd created a Facebook page for the site), Plurk and Ustream. Those of you who check stats regularly know that this is atypical. Search engine traffic often plays a much larger role, often times 50% or more. But this was a social media site, marketed through social media to active social media users. It worked well because we (I credit our early adopters for spreading the word) were focused on a very specific niche (Pownce users), who were well-versed in social media tools, and we had a deadline that affected everyone involved. Where are we now?Since then we've lost a bit of momentum and probably need to refocus marketing on community building strategies. But traffic is steady and we have a core of regular visitors. As of yesterday we've had a total of:
Traffic sources have shifted slightly. The increase in direct traffic is from membership growth and usage.
Where will we be next year?Who knows? The goal was to stay in touch. That seems to be working. In the meantime various members of the community and others are also working to build services with features more akin to the original Pownce. And while the economic climate is gloomy, new services continue to emerge. In another year we could be spending our lunch hours exploring some yet unknown site with yet another funny name. But what this has shown me is that social media works. In the right situation it can be a very effective marketing tool. But it's the people and the connections between them, that make it so. * For those 7 of you unfamiliar with the science fiction classic, Soylent Green, there is a classic line towards the end that states, "Soylent Green is people!" Alas, soylent green was also what people ate. What is the secret of Soylent Green?
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101 invaluable questions to build your Web Design Questionnaire | Woobzine
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10 Useful Techniques To Improve Your User Interface Designs « Smashing Magazine
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How Much Should a Web Design Cost? — Pearsonified
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Inspirational Tips and Tools from a Designer
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Quick & Easy Way to Implement Drag n Share With jQuery
5 Nov 2009, 6:09 am |
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Get the prettySociable PluginTo implement this functionality, you will need the prettySociable jQuery plugin written by Stéphane Caron. Download and extract the plugin, it contains everything you need to get up and running with drag n share. Include the Required FilesTo add drag n share to a page, add reference to jquery and prettySociable in your page’s <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/prettySociable.css" type="text/css" media="screen" charset="utf-8" /> <script src="js/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <!--[if lte IE 6]><script src="js/DD_belatedPNG.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script><![endif]--> <script src="js/jquery.prettySociable.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> The js folder also includes DD_belatedPNG.js which is used to fix PNG transparency issues in IE6 or older. You need to include that too. Define Draggable LinksNow to add drag n share to your web page, add an anchor tag Initialize prettySociableAfter you have added the rel attribute, you need to initialize the script. Add this single line of code, just above the <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"> // Init prettySociable $.prettySociable(); </script> Check out your page in browser and you should get drag to share functionality working nicely. Customizing the Default SettingsCustomizing the Shared InformationWhen you add rel="prettySociable" on an anchor tag with its href="#", this will share the URL of the current web page and use the title and meta description in But if you need to share a different URL instead of the current web page, specify a URL in the href attribute. Also you can customize the tooltip information which is shown on dragging. You can specify custom title and description in the rel attribute in this way. Customizing the Sharing PanelBy default prettySociable supports eight social networks but you can customize the social networks and their icons to your requirement. For that you’ll need to pass a settings object to prettySociable function. Here’s the complete settings object $.prettySociable({
animationSpeed: 'fast', /* fast/slow/normal */
opacity: 0.90, /* Value between 0 and 1 */
share_label: 'Drag to share', /* Text displayed when a user rollover an item */
share_on_label: 'Share on ', /* Text displayed when a user rollover a website to share */
hideflash: false, /* Hides all the flash object on a page, set to TRUE if flash appears over prettySociable */
hover_padding: 0,
websites: {
facebook : {
'active': true,
'encode':true, // If sharing is not working, try to turn to false
'title': 'Facebook',
'url': 'http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=',
'icon':'images/prettySociable/large_icons/facebook.png',
'sizes':{'width':70,'height':70}
},
twitter : {
'active': true,
'encode':true, // If sharing is not working, try to turn to false
'title': 'Twitter',
'url': 'http://twitter.com/home?status=',
'icon':'images/prettySociable/large_icons/twitter.png',
'sizes':{'width':70,'height':70}
},
delicious : {
'active': true,
'encode':true, // If sharing is not working, try to turn to false
'title': 'Delicious',
'url': 'http://del.icio.us/post?url=',
'icon':'images/prettySociable/large_icons/delicious.png',
'sizes':{'width':70,'height':70}
},
digg : {
'active': true,
'encode':true, // If sharing is not working, try to turn to false
'title': 'Digg',
'url': 'http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=',
'icon':'images/prettySociable/large_icons/digg.png',
'sizes':{'width':70,'height':70}
}
//add more social networks here
},
tooltip: {
offsetTop:0,
offsetLeft: 10
},
popup: {
width: 900,
height: 500
},
callback: function(){} /* Called when prettySociable is closed */
});
The settings object is self explaining. You can specify which websites to use and also the icons to use for each website in the websites parameter. You can enhance this drag n share script even further by using a shortened URL in the anchor tag’s href attribute. View Demo or Download prettySociable jQuery plugin. P.S.: To get this script to work correctly in IE, you will need to set margin and padding values in the style-sheet for anchor elements which are draggable. Related posts:
    
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10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists
4 Nov 2009, 1:09 pm |
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Twitter’s new Lists feature is all the rage right now. There are probably already millions of lists, and that number is growing by the minute (or second). So what are people using all these lists for? Are people creating lists just for the sake of creating lists? Savvy individuals are looking for ways to use lists to further their personal/professional agendas, and while we are all still learning how to harness the power of this new feature, here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing. Let us know in the comments what other ways you’re using Twitter Lists. 1. Industry Peers and Professionals ListsOne way to use Twitter Lists is to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry. Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly), founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, for example, created the Gov 2.0 list to accomplish this goal for government tweeters. Once you create your “experts” list, share the link with your peers. (If you’re in a generous mood.) If you have a Twitter network largely made up of industry peers, you’ll save them from reinventing the wheel by creating a public list that everyone can use.  Lists are still new enough that you can be the first to develop an “it” list. In other words, for many industries and topics you could create the de facto list of peers that others follow and reference. A list that garners a large followership means more attention for you and may increase your Twitter followers. Once you create the list, you’ll need to promote it. Add it to a list directory like Listorious for additional opportunities for people to view and follow. 2. Experts ListsIf you’re an expert, recognize other experts. Technology blogger Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) did this with his recent lists like, “most influential in tech,” and “web innovators,” for example. It’s a win both for Robert and for those he recommends. He continues to establish his credibility as a technology thought leader and others benefit from the recognition and online visibility. Many of his lists already have hundreds of followers. You can also use Twitter Lists to highlight individuals that routinely offer insight, tips, tools, etc. about a particular topic. Do you have certain people you keep on mobile alerts or have a special column for in Tweetdeck? It’s most likely a list in the making. If nothing else, lists like these let people you admire and/or listen to know that you appreciate the content they’re putting out. 3. Recognize and Reward Customers ListsLists can be used to promote your clients and/or customers. Depending on your industry, it’s an opportunity for your customers to connect with other like-minded people. You may decide sharing all of your customers on Twitter isn’t right for your business, but you can still take advantage of Twitter Lists to recognize your customers. You could, perhaps, implement a “valued clients of the week” list or run a contest that rewards a certain number of customers with a spot on a special list. Another way to reward customers is to create a list of your company’s Twitter accounts that offer special deals, discounts, or exclusive announcements. 4. Niche ListsThe New York Times’ City Room crew created the “NYC Street Food Trucks” list for all things street food in New York City. Creating niche category lists can be very helpful for others, so think outside the box. Maybe there’s an audience who would love a list of all celebrities who have graced the cover of Vogue and tweet. Or, perhaps, a list of viral video stars (e.g., @daviddentist) would be useful for some. What niche can you identify that needs a list?  Lists can also be humorous. @daphnebegonia, who happens to be a dog, curates a list of “people I have licked.” It’s a funny idea that offers potential, and a concept that can work for other animal-related entities. I’m hoping for a Sea World, “I met Shamu,” list. 5. Employee Directory ListsYou might have a link to your Twitter account on your website, but don’t forget to make an official employee Twitter List. You should include all official company accounts, along with employees who tweet on behalf of the organization (or if you have a more open culture, you could include any employee that tweets). Mashable has an employee list, as does Twitter. Share the list internally, too. Not only is this a way to aggregate accounts, it also makes monitoring easier. Think about creative ways you can promote your company’s Twitter list (for example, from the signature line of emails, or on your business cards). 6. Political Campaign ListsRunning for office? Aggregate your supporters or “friends of” the campaign for increased visibility. It’s important to stay connected to constituents, especially during election time (every vote counts!). In fact, go beyond campaign supporters and create an “official” party list, or a list of all the newspapers that have endorsed a candidate. If you’re a political reporter or blogger, create a private list of all candidates you’re tracking to keep tabs on their tweets more easily. (This same principal could be applied by journalists or bloggers to any beat, not just politics.) 7. Location-Based ListsCreate a list of everyone in your city/town who tweets. Or create a list of city and/or state employees who tweet. If your mayor, village manager, school district board members and others are on Twitter, group them together to create a resource for others in your area. This idea can work in an official capacity as well. If you’re in charge of a municipality’s website, aggregate the feeds from these lists for your official website to offer real-time updates to your citizens. 8. Event Attendees and Live-Tweeters ListsHosting an upcoming event? Encourage people to submit their Twitter IDs when they register. Share the list pre-conference and encourage people to connect. Don’t forget to update the list during the conference. You could also create a list of all speakers or sponsors for a conference to share with attendees, who can then familiarize themselves with the conference lineup and supporters before they get there.  Creating a special list of those live-tweeting events can make it easier for people not able to attend to follow the action without worrying about the noise created by extraneous hashtag conversations or spammers. 9. Self-Serving ListsLists can help you out, too. If you’re out of work, for example, you could create a list of company or recruiter accounts to monitor for job postings. Or if you need to stay current on a topic for work, you could create a list of companies or bloggers active on that subject. Just the act of taking the time to research a comprehensive (and accurate) list will help you as much as the information that will come through from tweets. And if you decide to share your list, it could have the potential to garner a large following, which can boost your online credibility. 10. Promote Your Affiliation ListsTwitter Lists may also be good for promoting or listing your affiliations. Collegiate alumni associations, for example, are constantly looking for ways to keep people engaged, enter the “University XYZ Alumni List.” This concept works for any group, organization, association, etc. Journalists, bloggers, promoters, and others could also create a list of affiliations as a way to disclose potential conflicts of interest. A public relations professional, for example, could create a list of their clients as a way to let followers know which of their tweets may exhibit a conflict of interest. How do you creatively harness the power of public Twitter Lists? Please share in the comments. More Twitter Lists resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Mashable, TweetDeck, Twitter Tags: List, Lists, trending, twitter, Twitter Lists          
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MYTH BUSTED: Internet Use Doesn’t Lead to Isolation
5 Nov 2009, 1:54 am |
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This is the picture we’ve been fed a lot by the media (did you see the movie Gamer? I rest my case), but according to a study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, it’s simply not true. Quite the contrary: online activities such as social networking, sending e-mails and blogging can lead to larger, and (perhaps even more importantly) more diverse social networks. From the study:
Yes, social isolation is still a problem for some 6 percent of the population, but it’s simply not related to the Internet, and hasn’t changed much since 1985. For the most part, the study conducted on 2,512 adults simply confirms what most of us know already: people use all this new technology to get in touch with their family and friends; for example, people call each person in their circle of closes friends on 195 days in a year, but they also see each of them face to face 210 days in a year. Same goes for Facebook and MySpace, as 71% of users have listed at least one member of their core network of friends as a friend on one of these services. Here’s the fun part: internet users are far more likely (45%) to visit a café or a coffee shop than people who don’t use the internet. And not only that; the myth that frequent internet users hang out mostly at home is also busted, as people have started using it many public spaces, such as libraries, bars, coffee shops, restaurants and the like. The full report is a very interesting read; you can find it here. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, webphotographeer Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, iStockphoto Tags: internet, isolation, social networking    
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Social Media Influencers are not Traditional Influencers
5 Nov 2009, 4:19 am |
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Guest post by Damien Basille, follow him on Twitter | Read his blog As more and more brands are moving all of their ad spend online, defining how influence affects their return on investment is necessary and must be done as soon as possible. While some are making inroads to define these calculations many are overlooking the fact that influence affects everything. Without factoring in the real issue of different types of influence you run into a number of problems, for instance focusing on one group of influencers over another or getting broad sweeping numbers instead of knowing exactly how effective your time and money has been spent on the proper target. One thing that usually doesn’t sync up here is that these online influencers with large followings are not the offline influencers. People with social media influence are able to spread brand messages and have their audiences actually absorb it. To get things done one thing is for sure: the more influence you have the better. While it is important to be able to have your message spread far and wide to the right people it’s also equally if not more important to influence others offline. Generally people who are extremely influential offline fly under the radar online and are able to get things done this way. Most of the time these people aren’t even online. Their offline networks are created so that they don’t need to be online. Some industries don’t necessarily need to be networking the way you and I may. When these offline influencers are online their follower numbers tend to be smaller and more concentrated. Why is that? Online Influencers What these people know is that while it’s important to have a large network to spread a message as wide as possible it’s even more important to have a smaller more concentrated network to make things happen. It’s the age old axiom of quality versus quantity. My answer to that is that it’s quantity of quality. The one question you need to ask yourself is this: what is my purpose for connecting? Connecting just to connect is aimless. The reason the offline influencers command more influential ears is that they know their time is valuable so they make sure every connection has a purpose. Every person in your life you connect to should have a purpose. Look at your 4 closest friends. Where they are will accurately reflect where and who you are. Ask yourself where you want to be successful in and focus on that. Both online and offline influencers know where they are successful because they concentrate on those areas. Offline Influencers What’s rarely seen is someone with a large online presence conveying an equal or greater command with influencers offline. Sure it’s been known to happen but not often. What happens with many online influencers is that their online influence starts to transcend these nonphysical boundaries and move into the physical world. When this happens they may be able to wow the crowd but the savvy businessman will be able to spot a charlatans a mile away. Not to say that all those transcending are charlatans but what tends to happen is that because they can influence a crowd they think they can influence the boardroom. These two types of influence are not the same and take two different sets of skills. Being able to influence C-level executives is different than getting a consumer to purchase a product. Sure the idea behind it is the same but you have to be able to speak not just two totally different languages. In fact each of those two languages are two different dialects. The Influential Divide Therein lies the problem with influence grading programs. While they try to ascertain digital influence this is still only a part of the picture. Even if you don’t factor in offline influence into the equation you still are left with a blanket influence grade. There’s all sorts of different types of online influence as I’ve talked about above, but let’s just only focus on the ‘big numbers’ influence for a moment. Every influential person with large follower numbers interacting online in social media spaces are not doing so in the same way. Some of them aren’t even influential. But for the ones who are influential even they have different nuances in what they focus on. Programs can’t ever capture tactics, strategies, interactions and general feel of someone’s value. While someone may be 80% mass influencer and 20% executive influencer, grading programs can’t capture the secret conversations (IMs, DMs, emails, Facebooks mail, LinkedInmails etc) that make up the core of someone’s worth. What often happens is that some of the most important decisions happen behind closed doors, online and offline. Sensitive correspondence tends to need discretion. Regardless of how transparent your interactions are there will always be something that you do that can be the linchpin to connecting. The Future of Influence Eventually what will have to happen is that programs like TweetPsych will be combined with social media grading programs like Klout as well as other lists like Ad Age Power150. All of these will factor in with some sort of sentiment analysis Myers-Briggs hybrid program that will tell you how you function. Signal Patterns is the closest there is to this so far.There are already programs analyzing your musical tastes and predicting for you (Pandora) as well as social media article prediction apps (my6sense) so why not a program that accurately pairs you up with people most similar to your interaction style? YES this may be very self-referential and take out the randomness of life, but sometimes you just want to connect with like minds. Eventually what needs to happen is that a verified analysis program will have to scan all of your private correspondences and grade you on different sets of publicly published benchmarks. For obvious reasons there will need to be discretion in not saying exactly what is being looked as the correspondences are most likely sensitive. Even Digg is building in influence to their ranking system: …Digg and WeFollow will now be more closely linked as we experiment with user influence as it applies to the Twitter universe… user influence and the data we collect during this process will play an important role in upcoming versions of Digg. I see this program not just analyzing the style and feeling of the messages but also the outcomes. Let’s say you have a conversation with someone about connecting them to something and lo and behold a deal comes to fruition with something you suggested. There’s no way anyone would know you had something to do with it unless you were explicitly a part of it. What if you connected the parties behind closed doors? That type of influence is lost on grading programs. (Klout tries to grade your Twitter Network Strength by asking How influential are the people who @ message you? and How influential are the people that retweet you? but how can you accurately do that if you don’t define the type of influence you’re looking to grade?) There will be a need to use directories of people and correspondences that happen in the offline world akin to CrunchBase. This will be combined with all of the above along with something like a NetPromoter Score for people for a definitive influencer score. Social media is still in it’s infancy and still hashing out issues that other industries have long ago defined. The next big hurdle for the online world to overcome will be converging interactions with the offline world that are organic, natural and can be quantified. As companies look to online networks to solve a lot of their traditional problems they’re going to want more and more accountability. This is where a converged influencer score will greatly help everyone out in the process in knowing someone’s real value, not just their perceived value. Read more >> 
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Leveraging Your Blog to Promote Your Services
5 Nov 2009, 4:30 am |
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If you’re like many creative freelancers, you have a blog. And being the diligent type that you are, it’s updated at least once a week. But here’s the bad news: There are a lot of other blogs out there. Which means that you’ll have to work hard to make yours stand out. Oh, no. Those two four-letter words: w-o-r-k h-a-r-d. They beg the question, what should you be hard at work on? Here are six suggestions:
1. Don’t just create a blog post and let it sit there. Tell the person/people involved in about it. I like to send a short e-mail with the header, “You have been blogged.” The body of the message includes a clickable link to the blog post. In some cases, I don’t hear anything back. But, in other cases, the response is quite warm. There are plenty of people and organizations who love being blogged about. And, I’ve found, if I ask them nicely, they’ll link to me. 2. Being included in someone else’s blog post can also be an opportunity. Not long ago, I noticed that a local political blog used my photo of a city council member marching in a July 4th parade. Now, a lot of photographers will tell you that you’re supposed to get all hot and bothered, that you should send them huffy e-mails mentioning lawyers and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and that they’d better remove that photo right now. I just wasn’t in the mood for that sort of thing. Instead, I e-mailed the owner of the site, which gets quite a bit of traffic, and asked for a link. Wish granted. 3. If you have an e-mail newsletter, make sure that your best blog posts are included in each issue. Month after month, I’ve found that my “Best o’ the Blog” feature has been my e-mail newsletter’s most popular. 4. Does your blog have an RSS feed? Make sure that the feed icon is prominently featured in your blog’s theme – say, up at the top of the page. And, for those who don’t know what RSS is, offer e-mail subscriptions to your blog. FeedBlitz and FeedBurner are the heavyweights in this field. 5. Do you also have a website? Make sure that your blog links to it, and vice versa. And, if your website doesn’t have an e-mail newsletter subscription form, why not offer e-mail subscriptions to your blog? This will help you stay in touch with your visitors. Over time, some of them could become clients. 6. What do you want people to do after they’ve read your latest blog post? I don’t know about you, but I’m interested in money, honey! That’s why I include a short pitch for assignments after the posts that relate to the areas in which I’d like to get assignments. For the areas in which I’d like to sell stock photography, well, let’s just say that I’m in the process of building a stock selling site, and when it’s done, my blog will link to it. Putting These Suggestions in a Larger ContextMy first two suggestions allude to something that the search engine experts call “link popularity.” The idea is that the more links you have, the better your ranking will be. Just be sure that the links you’re seeking are with the kind of Internet company you’d like to keep. The next three suggestions involve your ongoing efforts to stay in touch with your clients and blog visitors. Face it, a lot of them will hit your blog briefly, then they’re gone. Inviting e-mail and RSS signups will enable you to bring your content to them. Over time, this can help you build relationships that turn into sales. Which brings us to the final suggestion. None of us are blogging for the sheer love of blogging. We’re freelancers who are in business to make money. But first, let’s not forget to ask for the sale.      
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Imagine this: once a happy child with a lot of friends, little Jack has started spending many hours per day on social networking sites such as Facebook, which has turned him into a pale asocial freak. Oh, if only he’d never touched that cursed box we call the computer, he’d be a healthy young man now!
