I am pretty new to blogging and social media in general.  But when I started, I became hooked.  There are so many people who are sharing their amazing experiences on the internet, entirely out in the open.  It is so exciting to be able to share these experiences with others, because I am able to follow their journey on their own blog, Facebook and Twitter. 

But my friends who aren't as connected don't seem to get it.  They can't see the possibility of these connections, and it is really tough to explain how beneficial it can be.  When my friends ask me why I blog, I usually have several different reasons. 

 1.  To connect with others online who have the same goals and aspirations.  People like to talk about how when you are in your twenties you have the world by its tail or that you have your whole life ahead of you.  From the recent developments of many people moving to new areas to start a new life, I think most of us are taking advantage of our freedom.  I aspire to do the same in the next few months and I find the stories that I have read from others to be very informational and inspiring.  I believe that the connections formed through social media can be very powerful motivators to help push us toward our goals.  Because of my connections, I have been much more driven to achieve my goals. 

2.  To create a positive online presence for myself.  There is no question that by using social media, you will leave a history of online interactions.  When someone Google's your name, don't you want to control what comes up?  By taking an active role in your online history, you will be able to control what people see if you. 

 3.  To learn and explore other viewpoints, ways of life and methods to the madness.  I have learned so many things from different instructional blogs.  My blogroll includes several great blogs.  It is guaranteed that there is someone online who shares an interest with you.  Because of this, using social media to connect with these people can be very rewarding.  Maybe someone in Iowa has thought of a way to refinish your kitchen table that you haven't tried yet.  Maybe there is a boy in Brazil half your age that could teach you a new trick using a soccer ball.  What if someone in Thailand has finally figured out how to be completely location independent, the way you always dreamed your life could be.  There are so many interesting people online, it is impossible to not find something interesting to occupy your time.  

What reasons do you have for blogging?  Are they the same as the ones that I have here or are they different?  What are some great things that you have been able to achieve using social media?

I have been a social media delinquent.  After spending last weekend overnight in the ER and then on bedrest for two days I have been exhausted all week.  Add travel for meetings two hours away 3 days out of the week for work and "plans" every night after work and I have been so unplugged from social media I'm a little ashamed.  I've barely been able to get on enough to Tweet and Facebook update a link to my Relay for Life page asking for donations (cause on top of being exhausted I attempted to stay up for 26 hours straight to raise money for the American Cancer Society.)

And then it hit me and I wondered a bit.  Why was I so ashamed?  I felt like I had let my little online community down.  There were links to Retweet, there were Facebook posts to respond to, there were blogs to comment on...and I seemed disconnected and ambivalent.  Granted, its a daunting task trying to catch up on what hundreds of people are doing for 4 days, but there was so much more than that.  Sometimes, I think that I'm too much of a "nice girl" and end up pushing myself way beyond my boundaries.

This is one of the things people seem to fear the most delving into the world of social media.  Some people call it "information overload" I think of it more as "missed opportunities."  Chances to learn more about other people and develop connections with folks across the country that I've never met before.  Because that's what social media is all about.  Making it more than constantly posting links to your own work, selfishly promoting your brand and never engaging, updating on the most mundane topics (I really do not care how your afternoon vaccuuming went unless you have something personal to add or your vaccuum suddenly sprouted arms and began talking to you!) is what make someone interesting and "popular" in the social media world. 

I sucked it up and accepted the fact that 4 days of incommunicado life with my social media peeps, I had to be strategic in my responses so as not to deluge myself in Tweets and Updates.  I went back thru 24 hours of Twitter, 48 hours of Facebook updates, and my Google reader (responding to 4 out of 39 posts.)  I might tackle Brazen or 20SB tomorrow, or I might curl up with a book in my backyard if the weather is as nice as it was today.  Cause at the end of the day, while I miss being away from my online community, there's something to be said for exercising some other cells in my brain and enjoying the day!

First off:
Vanity-

• amour propre: feelings of excessive pride
• the quality of being valueless or futile; "he rejected the vanities of the world"
• conceit: the trait of being unduly vain and conceited; false pride
  (As defined by Princeton's WordNet)

Now to me, the quality of my Facebook experiance has been steadily decreasing for a long while.  A few months back, it was the frequent changes of the main interface layout.  Before that, it was the messy storm of constant application invitations.  Now, it's those "what is your true ____" quizzes that are all different applications so you can't block them all at once.  There's only a handfull of people left on Facebook that I actually have any quality interactions with on Facebook.  And I'm not the only one who has noticed this steady decline.  Twitter is constantly growing, and people are starting to look for the "new Facebook."

So is it by strange conincidence that Facebook decides after years of holding out, to suddenly let users make vanity URLs in a rat-race at midnight?  This, to me at least, seems like an effort to create an artificial buzz around Facebook.  Granted, the new  URL system does make names more Google search friendly (IF you beat all the other people with your name to the punch).  And Facebook can only do so much to improve it's services while the ultimate factor of whether it's used as a communication tool or as a tool to spread quizzes and apps like a bad rash is determained by it's users.  But all the same, the switch over to vanity URLs is a sign to me that Facebook is feeling a little under the weather, and possibly feeling a little threatened by that up-and-coming little blue bird.

Do you think Facebook's vanity URL changeover is a sincere improvement, or a sign of decline and an attempt to create buzz?  And how much does the quality of Facebook depend on how people use it as opposed to FB making constant improvements?

Remember back to junior high and high school when all you wanted was to be popular? You would have done anything to get invited to one of the "cool" parties, and if certain people ever looked your way, you would totally freak out.  There were all of the stereotypical cliques, The Breakfast Club personified. What does this have to do with social media? Actually, more than you might think.

Let's compare: There are the well-known, popular bloggers, who have the highest readership, the most trackbacks, subscribers and Twitter followers. Then, there are the people who are super involved in everything. Not only do they blog, but they have accounts on every social network and bookmarking site imaginable, and they're always looking for more. They have seriously considered getting a tattoo that says I heart Twitter.

We all have blog crushes and idols. There are certain bloggers who we totally admire, and who we aspire to like. These are the people we measure ourselves against, and on our toughest days, when self-doubt consumes us, they're the ones who make us wish we could be more. 

Sometimes, publishing a post is like wearing a new outfit to a party. We read over it millions of times, second guessing, until we finally manage to quiet the voice in our head and just go for it. Once the post goes live, we wait for the first comment, hope for discussion, and keep glancing at our Twitter feed so we don't miss any RTs.

You're probably thinking, wow, she's got me figured out. To think about the similarities this way is kind of depressing, but don't worry, there are good comparisons too. It's through these same social media outlets that we form communities. These sites connect us with people we would never have met otherwise. Among them, we will likely find some true friends, and great supporters. One meaningful comment can make up for several posts with none.    

In my opinion, it's worth dealing with the "social" part of social media because the positives far outweigh the negatives. What do you think of this analogy? Have you noticed any social media stratification? Is it worth it for you?

I work at a tech startup that enables/requires us to be online all the time, working directly with blogs, marketing through Twitter and then of course, doing our own online personal branding to "walk the talk."

I'm online. A lot.

I like the Internet and I blog. I'm pretty "social" on and offline. Online I appreciate social tools such as Twitter and Facebook. I've met some amazing people and new friends, all the while I am able to interact and stimulate my brain in a new way.

In my offline life, some of my closest friends are the least bit geeky (that's okay, I don't judge;). They often say, "Oh yea, you do something with blogs or something, right?" It sounds insincere, but really, that's just what they know.

They think it's a bit bizarre that I'm talking with a new friend on Twitter, they think that "tweet" sounds dirty (it sort of does, but I don't mind), they think I'm online too much and lingo like "DM," "trackback link," "SEO," or "Feedburner," just blows them away. I'm being extreme here, partly because it's humorous and also because I will recognize that I have a lot of friends who are on Twitter and understand the basic framework of the online social world.

If any of you are like me (online, geeky, blogger) and have some friends that aren't, then you know what I'm talking about. I take the jokes well but they also help to balance me because I know the importance of unplugging. I take time to be with them, unplug, then get recharged.

I won't let them stop what I'm doing. I love it and no one (even if they incessently giggle about my online antics) will be able to thwart that.

The upside is that I have begun to teach my friends in their business environment or even personal interest to get online, try Twitter (it's easy I say, only a few buttons and functions) and start reading some blogs that interest them. There are thousands of new blogs created each day, and since I see so many each week I know there are blogs from knitting to whaling. Believe me. Anyone can find a blog they dig.

So in the end, I really like the balance. The naysayers (friends who don't get the online thang) help me, push me and make me laugh. I don't take it personally and often times, I look for an opportunity to learn from them (their side) while I also help them out. I have a friend who was so anti-Twitter for a while--now she's always on it and really growing her personal brand. Makes me proud :)

Those naysayers, really having something to say and I think honestly, we can both learn from each other--online and offline.

Hard to believe, but up until my new job (December 2008) I wasn't very involved in the social media realm of the internet.  Yes, I've had my Facebook account since the first year when only college kids were allowed to have them (I remember when you couldn't even have pictures...) but I never knew of sites like Digg, Delicious, and, gasp, even Twitter.  But about 6 months ago, I was thrown into the mix with no direction and put onto my company’s social media team.  We are all novices - a little behind the times and learning everything we can from other people's blogs, ebooks, etc.  Since my job got me into social media, I thought that I would discuss social media from a business perspective by offering up a little bit of what I have noticed over the past 6 months. 

The one thing I have learned is that marketing will never be the same.  It is no longer companies going out to find their audience, but rather the consumer finding the right product themselves.  With the advent of the internet, smartphones, moving billboards, and all other space-agey stuff that makes me think of Minority Report, we the customers have the world at our disposal.  The internet was the best thing to happen to the customer in terms of competition.  Just look at ebay.  If I know that I can only buy the best cannoli at Libby's on Wooster - well now I can order them online all the way from San Francisco (actually, I can't but a girl can dream and my point is the same).  And furthermore, I can go online and compare with a click of a button - and while I don't have one, I've heard there’s a sweet iPhone app for doing just that.  It is now up to the marketers to create a two way conversation with their customers - no longer just throw funny ads and catchy jingles at them (although this is my latest fav).  Social media is the key to marketing success in the information age.

The key is: your audience is talking about you - it just depends on if you are listening and participating and responding. 

I started this post thinking I would type up what steps every single company's marketing department should be making - how to utilize twitter, Facebook pages, LinkedIn as the new rolodex, Digg, Delicious, Stumble (etc etc etc etc etc).  But instead of listing out the tools that I have learned in 6 months - which can likely be found all over the internet already - I am just going to avidly state my opinion.  Companies NEED to be on these mediums participating and creating conversations with their customers.  One of the biggest concerns is that it is hard to measure the ROI of exposure and company happiness.  And true, there are no explicit measurements - but I think that company growth and customer happiness will speak for themselves after the long haul.  Free marketing tools to grow customer relationships and save-face if you have to.  Any company that does this is showing innovation, forward thinking, and a willingness to listen and grow.  That is worth my money.  

Brands have become anthropomorphized.  We expect them to treat us as people would, perhaps even as a close friend would.  Business has become a two way relationship - and if you are consistently taking from your customer and not giving... well then they are probably tweeting pretty mean things about you and spreading the word.  It happens countless times every day.  But the best companies are proactive and on the offense.  Inbound marketing is here to stay, and if used well offers countless benefits.  It can get smaller companies noticed, increase brand awareness and customer loyalty, and boost lifetime customer value.  People tend to be loyal to their closest friends - so why not make your brand one of them?

 

The internet is full of information. Sometimes it seems like an endless labyrinth you can't help but get lost in. The morning routine of simply checking your email is a thing of the past. Now with Twitter, blogs, news sources, and wikis, it can literally take hours to catch up on what you've missed over night. No wonder our parents and other people from older generations feel like they're too busy to deal with the new social media. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has been accused by my not-as-social-media-obsessed friends of caring more about what's happening on Twitter than them. So, how do you juggle all of this social media and still manage to have friends, a job, and a life? Let's find out.

 

Take some time to use the original social media - your phone. Or even meet with friends in person! Since I follow many of my friends on Twitter, stalk them on Facebook, or read their blogs daily, I often feel like I know everything about them. False. Social media has "cyberized" our friends. We date online, we network online - we even At the rate we're going, everything will be online. It's important to call your friends or meet for coffee every so often - just to make sure they're still human.

Set a schedule and stick to it. Set an amount of time and the time per day that you will use various types of social media. Literally pencil it in to your calendar. Write on your blog and respond to comments from 6pm-8pm. Maybe you can check Twitter while you watch those mindless shows on VH1 you enjoy so much (Sundays at 9pm, Twitter and Daisy of Love-athon). Or catch up on the blogs you follow on your coffee break. If you need to wake up early before work or class to make more time, so be it. If you fall off the wagon, don't beat yourself up too much. It happens to the best of us.

Find time to escape. It's important to remember that even though you could literally spend all day on your computer, it's probably not healthy. Set time aside to work out, listen to music, read a book (remember those? The precursor to Kindle?). Make a date night with your friends where you don't talk about anything relating to social media. Even turning if it means hiding your computer and phone (I know you have email, Facebook and Twitter on your Blackberry...), it's necessary to retain some sanity. Sometimes the amount of information you look at online during the day can be a little overwhelming without you even realizing it. Give yourself a break to relax. Or brainstorm your next blog entry. It's up to you.

Use an RSS feed reader. I just recently started using Google Reader, and found it a fabulous way to cut down on the time I spend looking at blogs, checking updates, and even on news sites. It keeps track of websites and blogs you subscribe to, all on one page. You can even see the articles that your friends share.

Keep a [paper] journal. Sometimes I feel like I need to document all of my thoughts through Tweets or blog entries. This isn't necessarily so. I have lots of thoughts I'd like to keep private. Take some time to write about your day - what you had for breakfast, how you feel about a certain someone, etc - because your followers sure don't care, believe me. I carry a small Moleskine around in my purse to jot things down when I'm bored, instead of immediately reaching for my phone to refresh Tweetberry. I find that scrapbooking can also be therapeutic. Even though my creativity tends to lie more in words, I like to paste little tidbits into my journal. Ticket stubs to a movie I enjoyed. A postcard I received from a friend in Europe. These kinds of momentos can't be documented online.

 

These are just a few tips I thought of to keep you sane. If you have any others, please don't hesitate to comment. While social media can be an obsession, it's important to keep grounded and retain your sanity.

In earlier posts, I’ve talked about how we all live in an echo chamber – we choose what we want to see online – that which we agree with – and ignore the rest – that which goes against our morals, our policial and social beliefs, and so on. Up until recently, this was difficult to argue. On Facebook, the largest social networking site, you’re friends with people you know and like (for the most part). You join the groups you want to join. You can even be a “fan” of the pages of organizations, companies, celebrities – whatever you might feel compelled to be a fan of. This varies from “cuddling” to “Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations”. You subscribe the blogs that compliment your beliefs. Your homepage might be your news source of choice, which, like it or not, is probably biased. You watch YouTube videos that your friends suggest to you, because they know you’ll enjoy it.

With the newer social media, this may all be changing. From 2006-2007, percentage of online visits that were to social media sites grew 668%. Some of the fastest growing social media sites are leading us in our of our comfortable echo chamber.

Twitter has shown an unprecedented surge in growth over the last year. For those unfamiliar with Twitter…a) have you been living in a hole? b) it’s a service that allows you to compose 140 character messages to share anything from what you’re doing to news or articles that interest you. You can use Twitter to follow people or sources that interest you. Even though you may only “follow” those who have similar political or moral leanings, or even just your friends, Twitter has provided a network which encourages you to reach out to people whose interests and leanings you might not pay any attention to otherwise. A recent Slate article talks about how Republicans are starting to explore and use Twitter. I imagine that even Tweeps that don’t lean to the Right might find their Tweets interesting – if only as a platform for debate.

LinkedIn and other sites like it allow you to develop your professional network by making connections with people you know. You can upload your resume and other information about yourself, and use it to find clients, recommend people for your friends, and post and respond to job listings. This mix between a job listings site and a networking site allows you to take control of your network and expand your horizons.

At the latest count, there were 70 million blogs online. With blog hosters making it easier, and more free functions becoming available, any one with a computer and access to the internet can put their opinions online. Brazen Careerist, WordPress, 20something bloggers… all of these call to mind collaboration sites that give members an opportunity to browse and explore blogs. While some blogging communities are brought together by issues, there are many that bring many views to the table. Joining these types of sites are great to expand your views.

A newer social media called “social bookmarking services” allow you to add people to your networking and share bookmarked sites that you find interesting. Delicious and Digg are great for this. StumbleUpon allows you to set preferences, and sends you personal recommendations. Sites like this are great because they manually give you an opportunity to explore new sites.

Even music snobs are breaking out of their shells. With websites like Pandora and Last.fm, users can find music that has a similar style to music they already enjoy. For example, my favorite Pandora station, based on Kings of Leon, will play not only The Killers, who I also enjoy but also bands I’ve never heard of, like Cold War Kids.

Sooner or later, we all have to break out of our echochamber. Information is coming at us at a breakneck speed, and it’s not only that which we agree completely with anymore. There’s no longer any hiding from that which we disagree with.

Social media-buffs will be glued to their mouse at midnight this Friday. Especially if their name is John Smith.

Today, Facebook announced that they will be allowing users to pick “vanity” usernames. So instead of the ID number you were given when you registered, making your profile’s URL something along the lines of www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890, you will be able to pick something like www.facebook.com/john.a.smith. > Choose wisely. You might be stuck with your username forever. So while www.facebook.com/johnnydeppisdreamy might be cute right now, you may change your mind in a couple years.

Of course, with any change on Facebook, there is an uproar. Those who are obsessed with controlling their own social media, like myself, are excited. Comments on Facebook’s blog post range from outrage (many users are attacking this change by calling it a “step back to MySpace), to indifference, to excitement. It can be understood. Facebook has been making many changes over the last year – some good (the new Invite Guests feature that makes creating an Event and inviting your friends easier than scrolling through a list of names and checking boxes), some bad (the mock-Twitter homepage interface).

Many will agree that this move by Facebook is both professional and will be very useful. As a person’s Facebook site is one of the first hits when a name is Googled, it makes sense that we should be able to personalize a URL. It will also make it easier to connect with people. An intelligent move by Facebook – though they are the most popular and the highest rated networking sites, social media like Twitter (with an unprecedented 1382% growth this year), and social bookmarking services like Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious are gaining popularity. Now, social media is about more than sharing your interests and activities – it’s about sharing what you’re eating for breakfast, and what websites you’re visiting.

Will this increase growth? I think yes. People who might have been holding out on getting a Facebook account might not wait. As it has over 200 million users, there are bound to be thousands who don’t end up with the username they want. In this respect, this might be a deterent for some users.

One of the flaws is that this feature will not be available for Facebook Pages. Hopefully this will happen soon, as it could be very beneficial for companies and organizations that want to create these Pages for marketing.

For more information, visit the FAQ.

Do you think this is a good change for Facebook? Why or why not?

If you could change anything about Facebook, what would it be?

Social media exemplifies a world without boundaries. A meeting ground for multiple disciplines and people of varied interests, who can in theory, interact with ease, and straddle several worlds.

For many people who aren’t geeks, or early adopters or any of the buzz words the so-called experts bandy around, it all boils down to three big questions:

What value does it deliver?

Why should I spend time on this?

And importantly, what do I lose by not being active on social media – as a business / as an individual?

While the answers vary with each individual, I would like to share some observations that may help you make an informed decision.

Be warned I’m no expert! These are learning’s from my own journey into the world of social media, as a businessperson [an image maker for people and brands] and as an individual with diverse interests [sociology to sports, is knowledge personal or community-driven?]

So here goes:

1. The first thing is: do you have to? Well, if you can get by without a business card, or if your world doesn’t require spreading your circle of attention beyond people known directly, you don’t ‘need’ social media.  I have watched many successful and amazingly well-connected individuals continue to effectively build their networks without social media. Infact a new ‘reverse snobbery’ is at play here i.e. what can you keep away from the public domain, as a privacy-loving individual. Ofcourse there is that one story for all, to satiate public hunger!
2. Tool vs idea: Social media is a tool that allows us to connect and engage with people, in a way that hasn’t been possible earlier. The tool doesn’t do away with the need to have a core idea and/ or message you want to transmit. Share a great idea! Say something interesting! Or listen. Don’t add to the noise.
3. Exercise discretion:  You don’t have to consume everything. You don’t eat chocolate cake all the time, even if you love it, right? There’s always a choice about which networks and engagement levels, and its upto you to arrive at a level that you’re comfortable.
4. Recognise echo chambers: We instinctively form groups / cliques to surround ourselves with friends and ‘people like us’. This is natural and there’s nothing wrong with this approach, if that’s your purpose.  Engaging with people around the world, whose world view and lives are vastly different from your own, but who share a few common interests requires a vastly different approach. It is then we need to be especially vigilant about escaping the echo chamber.
5. Be relevant, deliver value: Even the best brand of beer isn’t value for money if its flat! Similarly, just putting up a well-designed blog or website attractive are basics, but these aren’t enough. Being relevant and delivering value everyday is quite like nurturing a garden. You’ve got to be out there tending to your garden every day, plant new ideas, and weed out useless stuff [even if they sounded superb!].  This will make it interesting and valuable to connect with you.
6. Frequency vs quality: If blogging / networking add to your stress factor, there’s something wrong in the mix. Choose how much time and attention you want to pay, and then do it 100%. That’s right - budget time for this activity as much as any other. Active professional social networkers spend time and monitor outcomes regularly. I personally would choose quality over frequency.
7. Courtesy is essential online: If you’re unlikely to say something in a face-to-face interaction because its rude, then don’t say it online. In the absence of visual/ non-verbal cues, it is vital that your words are unfailingly courteous and not misunderstood.
8. No deadwood: We’ve all visited profiles/ websites that tweet or update once a year and never go back! Don’t create profiles on every social network there is, if you don’t have time to engage with the community. Instead, if you’re worried about your personal brand name being taken, create place holder profiles and indicate what they are, while directing traffic to your active profiles. Most professional users are spread over facebook, twitter, linkedin, flickr and one or two more interest-specific sites. That’s all the average person has time for!

In real life we can’t be everywhere, all the time. Social media gives the impression that you can be available at multiple points. What’s important is to choose how you want to engage and make the experience a pleasure for you and the people you seek to know more about.

To answer one of Matt’s questions: Can you see yourself being OK without Facebook and Twitter?

The absence of social networking isn’t life-threatening! But the presence [of social networking] adds colour and diversity to our lives in a way that wasn’t ever possible before!

The world is full of wonderful people and experiences. And I am always looking out for those amazing points of intersection, where the magic comes alive, online and offline!