Influencing Myself: How Loud is Your Social Space?

Ryan    Uncategorized     Followers, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter Influence

What are the most noticeable tweets in your tweet flow? Out of everyone you follow, who makes the biggest noise? Do you even monitor your following, or just watch your TweetDeck custom searches pop up?

In today’s social media universe, and especially in the world of Twitter, the act of following or being followed is continuing to affect the way we act and socialize with each other. As a rule of thumb, we feel that the amount of people following us directly relates to how much authority or importance our profile has. This is not only true, but clearly evident in some of the most respected Twitterphiles and Twitterco’s out there. But while we are focused on upping our followers twit by twit, one thing to keep in mind is influence… and noise.

Take your own profile for example. As you watch twits come in day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, what are the most influential posts that strike you most? OR… what are the ones that you find yourself clicking the links to, more often then others?

Depending on how you answered that question, and depending on what your own personal goals for Twitter are, what do you think are some good ways to improve your influence? Maybe… stop tweeting about the same thing once in a while!

For me, I’m professionally motivated by anything revolving around #SEM, #SEO, #PPC, #SocialMedia, etc, etc. To anyone in those fields, chances are, if you’re on Twitter, you’re looking for influences to follow. Back to me… At the same time, as I continue to follow more and more people, I’m finding that what these people actually have to say, are turning more into gray matter, then information I’m really looking into researching more deeply. If I get news once a minute every minute regarding ‘Thought A’… ‘Thought A’ begins to look a little less flashy in my stream of updates. In fact, it can almost look a little bland. Now, what if a post regarding ‘Thought Z’ pops up once a day within that gray area…. ‘Thought Z’ though maybe not associated directly with what I am doing, starts to sound a little more interesting, and the people talking about ‘Though Z’ are seemingly having a bigger impact in what I’m taking away from my Twitter experience. What does this mean for someone who is actively trying to make use of Twitter?

I think the most important thing to realize is, pick who you want to follow carefully. Sure, you can search for every expert in Social Media or SEO or PPC out there, but as you evolve that list, are they really going to make a difference in your twit stream? Pull from your hobbies, and enjoyments in life. Find your local radio station’s personal Twitter profile and check out what they’re doing in their own social space. Find local groups, charities, or associations you are passionate about, and get involved with their social space. Better yet, use your geographic location to help you find interesting people in your own communities. If it can ignite a social relationship outside of your small computer screen, then who knows the kind of impact that can be made on something as short as 140 characters. The plausibility of associating your online relationships into humanistic friendships grow stronger when you actively seek a real interaction.

Although diversification is often related to stocks, think about it in terms of your Twitter profile as well. Maybe influencing ourselves is just as important as influencing others.

Peace

Mike Volpe vs. TechCrunch – I've Got Social Capital.. More Than Some

Ryan    Uncategorized     Facebook, Grader, mvolpe, Social Media, techcrunch

Across the Twittersphere this afternoon, I came across a Tweet from Mike Volpe (@mvolpe) regarding a reply to a posting from Michael Arrington (@techcrunch) regarding HubSpot’s Facebook Grader. Have you seen/heard about this debate yet? Well if you haven’t, do some searches, you might find some ReTweets, Replies, or whatever else out there.

Any ways, Arrington published a post at www.TechCrunch.com yesterday reviewing HubSpot’s latest online grading application, Facebook.Grader.com What does it do? It “Measures the Power of a Profile” says the website. Alright this is all well and good… I’ve seen Twitter.Grader.com as well as PressRelease.Grader.com, and they all pretty much do the same thing. Gives you a score depending on numbers of followers, following, groups, and whatever else they want to look at. The tools are cool, and I’m sure are widely used, but why is Arrington coming out and blasting the FB Grader? He says that  “…it’s beyond useless” Is it?

Maybe, but to start off, I think it is important to take a step  back and really define where SOCIAL really comes from. People have started doing this lately, and some people haven’t. Although there are mixed ideas about what IT really is, there are a few terms you should NOT overlook.

SOCIAL: (One source says:) relating to human society and its members; “social institutions”; “societal evolution”; “societal forces”; “social legislation”

CAPITAL: (One source says:) assets available for use in the production of further assets

Now hold on a minute. If I’m trying to measure the “power of a profile” does that entail that every profile is not equal? Does that mean that if my profile is more powerful then yours, I should be regarded as having more capital than the average producer… universally? Is there a form of universal capital at all in Social Media? Does that even make sense? If that’s the case, you’re sort of limiting yourself on who you are trying to relate to. A common good is always nice, but nobody can tell one person or another what or who they think they should be listening to/preaching at.

While HubSpot has it’s grading tools, and pretty cool grading tools at that, use of these tools should be understood that depending on where you are looking/who you’re looking at/who you want to hear you/and so on, you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. Thinking smart about your own personal social efforts is the best way to be, in essence, SOCIAL. Sure there are leaders in the world, but sooner or later, the underlings rise up and elect new leaders. Change happens. But everyone knows that right? ;-) (Congrats Obama)

Peace

P.S. Don’t abuse your position. It’s about the people, whether they like you or not.

P.P.S. Theres some good link juice in here guys, so don’t blast me.

Personal or Professional

Ryan    Uncategorized     Personal Blog, Professional Blog, SeaTac, SMO, Social Media

So I’m in deep thought in whether or not I want to continue my endeavors at RyanJin.me on a strictly personal, a strictly professional, or a combination of both approach. I know there are advantages to all options, as well as disadvantages, but at this stage in my professional career, the choice is a little hard… that is without starting a new blog from the very beginning.

For one, I think my new found interest in Social Media, Social Media Optimization, and so on, is a great reason to go professional. On the other hand, well really, on the same hand, Social is all about personalization… making the personal, professional. That by itself is reason enought to do kinda both I’d imagine. Unless I want to bash, swear, and totally $&@# up my image by using bad language and links. I guess I won’t do that. Damn. Does anyone have any ideas on proactive ways of splitting your personal and professional blog posts without starting a brand new blog? I’d take any advice I can get.

Any ways, this week couldn’t have come at a better time. Leaving in a day for Seattle, Anniversary in a week, some cool surprises for Andrea, I’m feeling good right now. Just got to get through a few days at work and then I’m gone for a week and a half! Although I do have to face the music that is the snowy SeaTac Airport.. as well as the snowy Bellingham Airport. Well hopefully we actually see the snowy Bellingham airport. Otherwise.. not quite sure what. I’m hating just thinking about it. If you want to see some up to the minute reports for people directly at SeaTac, check out.. Twitter Search. Makes me kinda scared.

Any ways, more later.

Peace

Why Your F2F Ratio Determine's a Business/Person's Involvement in Social

Ryan    Uncategorized     Social Marketing, Social Media

I’ve recently seen some situations where some individuals and businesses on Twitter vary the way in which they socialize with their followers and fellow tweeters. Starbucks has taken it upon themselves to follow anyone who starts following them (Don’t quote me on this, I just know they did it to me). WordPress on the other hand, has not a single person it is following.

From a mathematical perspective, Starbucks Followers to Followed ratio is close to 1. It’s actually greater than 1 if you want the truth. WordPress’ F2F ratio is, you guessed it, a whopping 0. Good, bad?

In a recent 2 tweet conversation I had with @Starbucks, they mentioned that “@ryanjin I think it comes down to how much engagement with the community you’re looking for”. A perfect explanation. In this thing we call social, isn’t engagement the overarching priority? If we used Twitter only as a means to convey our news, events, or press releases, we aren’t gaining any kind of value to even having it. Yet, WordPress has over 14,000 followers. I guess they’re looking for that kind of news source.

Back to what Starbucks is saying though. Social IS all about the engagement with the community. Listening to what others have to say, learning and hearing what trends people are talking about! I suppose there is a breaking point where you’re just going to get flooded with crap loads of Tweets every second, but that’s a whole other story. If a business in inclined to actively invest or explore a Social Media strategy, they need to grasp onto the technologies main features and harness the full potential without looking both pretentious or taking in any input from their audience.

Back to the math… I don’t really think you can’t justify an adequate ratio for a tweeter. There can be averages, and there can be norms, but for everyone’s social experience, the ratios will be different. Too high, you’re looking pretty spammy. Too low, you’re looking pretty pretentious. Exactly one?…. well you’re just looking a little too perfect. Only you will be able to manage and explain your F2F ratio. It’s all a matter of personality and being social right?

Peace.

Social Media Outsourcing (New SMO?)

Ryan    Uncategorized     Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Outsourcing

Just finished a nice discussion on Twitter regarding the benefits and feasibility of Outsourcing Social Media. Is it possible? Sure. Would you do it? No.

So why would I not outsource social media?

Would you let someone manage your own personal contacts, personal conversations, and personal business? Maybe. Would you let them manage it if they weren’t affiliated with the business/you? Probably not. Social media agencies are a possibility in the future, but the way they do business would have to be closely similar to consultants. When you let somebody else take charge of your brand, your image, and your projected personality, you risk looking phony, looking cheap, and losing a good chunk of your qualified audience.

Say for example a company tweeted on a product release. People are going to ReTweet that, reply to it, begin to follow the Tweeter, etc. etc. If you don’t have personalization behind that tweet that is ready for a bombardment of questions, followers, or whatever else, the image of that Tweeter will begin to suffer. They don’t work for So and So. Why should I trust this source? Let’s take our business elsewhere where we’ve done business before. They are more personable.

Agree or Disagree? Why?

Peace.

Subjective Search Engine Optimization

Ryan    Uncategorized     Organic Search, Social Media, SSEO, Subjective Search

With all the recent news about how we’re looking at more subjective search engine results, universal results, so on and so forth, is there a need to revamp the way we look at SEO? Of course.

There are a few main things subjective search will end up doing. First, the amount of eyes that each website will reach will decrease. Once search engines can correctly distinguish your potential interests and search habits, the more refined and targeted those search results will be. While this might sound negative, you should also consider that… secondly, the people that DO see your results will be a hellva lot more targeted and interested in your results. Also, with more targeted and subjective search results, there is the huge possibility of decreasing ‘gray area’ competitors from encroaching on your selected term.. and meaning as well.

So what does this mean? While today we optimize sites for keywords, the importance of secondary keywords, placement, and structure will get even more important in the coming months. Even though we are pretty hazy on what Google has up it’s sleeves, we know for a fact that customized search results are going to become a standard. Take a look at your Search History in Google, and what do you think Google think’s about you? Are you a professional searcher? Novelty searcher? Maybe even a porno searcher? Good luck trying to find relevant search results for your “rear entry” or “milk jug” search terms. Nonetheless, if you can gauge and understand what your audience or potential audience is searching for or has the tendency to search for, the more power to you. I think in general this just makes the role of an SEO or SSEO more engaging and less repetitive. Go out and do the fun research yourself, and learn what it’s like to be a real marketing professional.

Technology is good, but with the way our trends are pointing, it’s changing heavily and fast. In combination with Social Media, Pay Per Click, Universal Search, and tons more, the possibilities for brand recognition, name recognition, and potential client/customer reach are endless. If you don’t know how your target is searching, you shouldn’t be in the field.

Peace

Twitter Feed, RSS, and Legal Issues

Ryan    Uncategorized     Rss, Social Media, Twitter

So with everyone Tweeting these days, a few things should begin to make their way to the back of our heads. The more people retweeting news, stories, links to downloads, links to store products, etc, the more there could be legal issues down the road? I mean, a whole slew of copyright and trademark laws are at stake, and while everything we’re doing seems harmless, could it be illegal one day to pick up affiliate pay for linking to our favorite Amazon.com downloads?

That being said, I think the possibility of people misusing Twitter is quite high. While there aren’t too many restrictions for it’s use, I could see someday how the whip will need to be cracked on frivolous uses. It already can be seen. Have you had followers begin to follow you only to find out that their account is under investigation? What would be the point in following lots of people?

In essence, don’t add anything to the Twitter community if you don’t have anything original to add. If you find a way to leverage your position, use it correctly and don’t overdo it. The more notoriety you have down the line, the more you open yourself up to scrutiny later on.

Peace.

Social Media Labs… A Work in Progress?

Ryan    Uncategorized     Social Media, Social Media Labs

Another topic that stemmed from my lunch with EL today was the issue regarding our plans for a Social Media Labs site. Articles, blog entries, tools, tips, you name it, we want to incorporate it. Have any good ideas? Have any good URLs?

We think this can be a great potential for the Social Media position as well as for developing new and intriguing theories, ideas, and strategies.

Anybody know of a decent website management/blogging solution besides wordpress?

Peace

The Importance of Content

Ryan    Uncategorized     Content, Social Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

After a spicy lunch with EL this afternoon, we’ve both come to the agreement that content is the most important aspect at successful web marketing/social media strategies. What do I mean by this… If you’re just ‘ReTweeting’ everything from someone else, copying links from blogs not your own, or something similar, you aren’t providing a viable service/product/resource to followers. You might be for a short while, but eventually, people will catch on, and do their news surfing themselves. Not the way to go.

Instead, if you focus on the content… making videos, actually writing in your blog, supplying a real service, then you have something to market and socialize about. So what does this all boil down to? Social media is so new and is still in the wee early stages of development that anyone who tells you they know what it is to know about social, is lying to you. Give it another year or so, and you will definately know who and where social is going.

Social search, mapping, cacheing, filtering… this stuff is totally unchartered when it comes to social media. I believe that in the next few months, you’ll begin to see a more dynamic breed of programs and applications out there that really start to push social media.. and dare I say, social advertising/marketing to the next level.

Peace.

SocialU and Google

Ryan    Uncategorized     Google, Social Media, SocialU, Subjective Search

Hey, so I downloaded SocialU last week and gave it a test run to see what exactly it does. EL has introduced me to lots of new social media platforms and I have to say, it’s pretty interesting. Any ways, after playing around in SocialU I realized that this was just an attempt at beginning to create dynamic/subjective search engine. Basically, you go in, create an account, and then socialize with friends who are on the same platform. BUT… the program is also a browser. Not only can you visit your favorite websites, but you can rank them on popularity, or maybe even whatever you want. After ranking, you can also leave comments, add to favorites, you can pretty much do whatever. It’s all fun and good.. but then…

SociaulU

Google released WikiSearch last Friday. Have you seen it? It’s basically a feature in a Google SERP that allows you to remove unwanted links.. or links you don’t want clogging up the top of the search results page, and then allows you to rank other pages higher. At the same time, you can leave comments on each page. WTF!?!? Are you kidding me? Was SocialU first to this idea of ‘subjective search’ first, or maybe it’s a scheme by Google to attract new audiences…? Although I’m thinking Google has little to do with SocialU, the resemblances are uncanny. Well they are canny, just very similar is what I’m trying to say.

Any ways, check them both out.