Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
People like to talk about social media sites in terms the amount of traffic sent by getting on the front page, backlinks, profile backlinks, and passing pagerank.
Image credit: sara.musico
Today, we’re going to have a little fun with it. We’re going to take the web 1.0 metric of time on site and go a little more touchy feely with it for a web 2.0 world. Trust me, this will be fun. Here is a list of my top 5 favorite most addictive sites within social media. Perhaps they aren’t even my favorite, but rather that I can’t seem to get myself off of them 
Plurk
There’s a reason that people are taking a long hard look at Plurk, some of them even migrating or at least spending more time there than on Twitter. Two words: Instant gratification. As if Twitter wasn’t instant gratification enough to type in 140 character points and responses, Twitter has fallen from some people’s obsession list as Plurkers seem heavily engaged, providing rapid threaded responses. It isn’t uncommon to see dozens of responses to a Plurk in 15 minutes – something you’ll never see on Twitter unless your name is Guy or Scoble. What’s worse (best?) is that Plurk’s karma, a key factor in its addictiveness, will actually go down if you’re inactive for a while. Oh, and don’t Plurk too much, the safe Plurking habits guide recommends no more than 30 Plurks per day. Brilliant.
Twitter
Once you’ve found interesting people to follow and have a following, Twitter is an awesome place. Also helpful is to be watching some search tools and have a good client (I’m big on using Twitterfox and Hahlo for the iPhone). It’s great for asking questions, looking for resources on a project, and keeping up with what people are doing.
Breaking news can often be found on Twitter as well. And yes, it has been criticized for its uptime performance – the same people that are hitting the refresh button every 2 minutes while Twitter is down Yeah, it’s that addictive.
StumbleUpon
It’s been around considerably longer than many people think. StumbleUpon is one of my favorite sites due to all the great finds I get through it. SU is a true discovery engine, something that if positioned correctly can give traditional search a true run for its money. StumbleUpon is doing something right, and people are taking notice. I’m a big fan of what they have done with SearchReviews (now in Yahoo as well), putting in your friends stumble ratings right on the SERPS.
Facebook
I know what you’re thinking. Facebook is for kids. It’s annoying. It invades my privacy. Say what you will, but with facebook chat, a few addictive apps, and seeing people on there that mainly stay off other social sites (read: have a life off the computer), Facebook is still a daily mainstay for me. It’s a great way to connect with people that you haven’t seen in years, and you can quickly get lost in time through all the possibilities.
Digg
Image credit: Valleywag
Say what you will. Digg has its issues, but for me, it’s still something I’m checking out throughout the day. While Digg has its challenges and critics, it really is a great place to find a wealth of content (and finally has a new comment system). Yes, a lot of it is just funny/linux/apple, but there really is a lot of good stuff.
There are several others that just missed the list for me: Mixx, Reddit, LinkedIn and FriendFeed, just to name a few. Reason is that I’m finding with the demands of my total addict sites, I’m just not spending time on these other sites every day consistently.
Which social sites are you finding the most addictive?
Posted in Social Media | 36 Comments »
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
Why haven’t you frontpaged yet? I want to go for a swim already.
The short answer: no.
The longer answer:
So I’ve been out for most of the week on vacation. Which got me to thinking – can you really take a vacation from social media?
I mean, how can you expose yourself to risking all those great tech/news nuggets like Wordpress 2.5 Release Candidate?
Once you have social media in your system, it’s hard to step away from all those RSS feeds and social sites.
Especially when most hotels have free wifi (in the USA anyway, thanks for pointing this out, Tim). They’re in on it too. A hotel employee actually asked me if I had wireless, which was pretty amusing. In any case, it’s important to break away from social media from time to time.
Perhaps we take ourselves too seriously in social media. We blog, podcast, Twitter, lifestream, RSS, aggregate, rant, and vote. Does the “outside world” think we are nuts? Probably.
Are we the news source? We break the news. Sometimes we even make the news. Trying to separate the signal from of the noise isn’t easy, and this is what we are tasked to do. So I ask you again, are we the bloggers, the real news source?
All told, it’s good to be back… even though I never really left
Posted in Rants, Social Media | 6 Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
(yes, that’s supposed to be a Twitter army )
Why Twitter is Important
(click image for full size)
To many Internet Marketers,Twitter has become important. Some people may not yet understand, but this may just be part of their journey through the social media learning curve. As with any social media application, site influencers got to where they were by putting in the time to understand the community. Twitter is no exception.
Let’s take a look at 7 Steps that Make Twitter Work:
Step #1. Twitter is more than personal updates. Sure, some people like to put in cat updates or say what they are eating for lunch, but Twitter is much more than that. Blogs used to have much the same stigma pinned on them, but one day the world woke up and understood the power of simple publishing + citizen journalism. Microblogging has reduced the time to market of content down to minutes and seconds, a huge improvement over blogs which brought it down to hours from previous forms of communication.
Twitter is a great place to:
-broadcast breaking / important news
-hire people
-get advice (on just about anything)
-run a poll
-rag on others
-promote yourself
-promote others
Step #2. Now that you have your head on straight, socialize. Chances are, if you participate in the social media community, people you know are already on Twitter. While Twitter doesn’t have the best way in the world to find people, sometimes the best way is to just see who your friend is following.
Step #3. Don’t just sit there, say something. Join the conversation. Without being too noisy, get in there. Nobody is going to ask you to the dance if you are just sitting around. See what people are talking about, jump in with some “@’s” (replies to a user) and perhaps some direct messages too.
Step #4. Now that you’ve said something, quiet down. Like any social media site, know the community and follow its norms.
Step #5. Know the difference between a push vs a pull mechanism. When you post a link to your latest blog post to Twitter, you are doing a push. An action meant to grab the reader. They can ignore it, but people that like what you bring to the table will check you out. Instantly.
RSS on the other hand is a pull. Users will check RSS at their own pace and it will take more time to get buzz around your content.
Step #6. Fine tune, and read what’s out there. Here’s the part where you get to see where others have broken ground already, leaving valuable information for you along the way.
My suggested reads:
-Jeremiah Owyang on how he uses Twitter
-Shana’s awesome post about 26 reasons why I love Twitter
-DoshDosh put together a fine list of 17 ways to use Twitter.
Step #7. Put it all together and measure your results. As the title of the post mentioned, I promised a 438% growth in followers in a 30 day period. Here was my progression:
The notable jump right past the midway point came from a mention in Marketing Pilgrim’s initial post on Internet Marketers to follow.
After looking through this list a few times, I thought that both Twitter addicts and those that may not even use Twitter at all might be left with a few questions. Here’s my attempt to answer a few:
Q: 438% growth doesn’t just magically happen. How did you do it?
A: Well, I’ll tell you:
1 – Followed people I knew
2 – Adjusted my level of noise
3 – Thanked people for following me
4 -Kept the conversation going with those that replied quickly
5 – Instigated a few fights
6 – Chatted with better known people
7 – Unfollowed those that were bothersome / too noisy
8 – Crosslinked on my blog and other social media profiles
9 – Did a bit of brand management / data mining, keeping a keen eye on Tweeterboard stats, Terraminds info, and Tweetstats graphs
10 – Retweeted things that I felt were important that my followers might have missed from my Twitter friends
Q: Ok, so you got some new Twitter followers. If I post a link, maybe I get 5-10 visits to my blog. Why should I care?
A: The reason that you should care isn’t the direct traffic, but rather the indirect influence. If you Tweet a link to a new blog post, people will rush to submit it to social sites. This is changing the “pull” dynamic inherent in RSS (which may become passive for folks that are too busy to keep up on RSS) to a “push” dynamic through Twitter – but to people already interested in you. What’s more is that your followers may see your Tweets as a call to action, and begin to submit / vote for post you may have.
Posted in Social Media | 37 Comments »
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Hello everybody who voted in the Open Web Awards hosted by Mashable.
Back in November Mashable presented their Open Web Awards and invited Collective Thoughts to be one of the Judges. The Open Web Awards is the first ever online, open collaborative awards event, to recognize the best online communities representing web 2.0
We would like to anounce the overall “people’s choice” winners.
Mainstream and Large Social Networks = Facebook
Applications and Widgets = Flock
Social News and Social Bookmarking = Digg
Social Search = Mahalo
Sports and Fitness = ESPN
Photo Sharing = Flickr
Video Sharing = YouTube
Start Pages = Netvibes
Places and Events = Meetup
Music = Last.fm
Social Shopping = Woot
Mobile = Twitter
Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks = FilmCrave
Thank you to everyone who participated with us in this event.
Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »
Monday, November 19th, 2007
Greetings all – thought I would start off by setting the record straight and rebut the post from Brian that Twitter is just for useless cat updates. Even Mashable seems to poke fun at my brethren.
The nerve! You’ll find my not so useless Twittering activity here, as I am regarded as a thought leader in feline social media. People and cats alike are attuned to the microblogging that is Twitter.
The concept of Twitter is sound, as are most projects started out by Evan Williams (Blogger, Twitter, Odeo), giving folks the ability to write as a quick stream of thought. It’s all about quick notes to self, dropping subtle hints, and bookmarking.
You can’t write more than 140 characters by design – anything beyond that is a blog post in the works. The thing I like best about Twitter is that it gives the ability to keep direct and constant communication with your friends, blog readers, and customers without needing to divert off focus with your blog.
Twitter might at first be perceived as noise when there is more than enough signal to keep you busy. There’s value in noise. Lots of value – and Twitter is a raw base for doing some very interesting data mining.
If you’re new to Twitter, check out the Newbie’s Guide to Twitter. Once you’re done with that, here are some other helpful pages to help you can acclimated to Twitter:
Resource List for Twitter
Some useful opinion posts that I’ve come across are 10e20’s Can Twitter Serve as Highly Targeted Marketing Tool?, Pronet’s Three Hidden Dangers of Twitter, and Trisignia’s Twitter and the Virginia Tech Emergency.
Interesting Folks to Follow
Interesting Companies to Follow
And cat updates, you ask? I can assure you that I am as real as any other imaginary cat. Be sure to follow me. Now I’m off to wreck Brian’s furniture.
Posted in Social Media | 7 Comments »
