Insights from Chirp
A few days ago, Twitter held its first ever official developers conference, Chirp. Because it was in San Francisco and I’m an east coast girl, I stuck to the live webcast (which was kind of spotty at times). But here are some of the interesting things I that learned/announcements that Twitter made.
- A New York Times story link is tweeted every four seconds. Twitterverse is well-read.
- Careful what you tweet – from now on, every single public tweet will be housed in the Library of Congress. They also acquired the public tweets in the Twitter archive, dating back to the first tweet in 2006. More on that here.
- Tweet annotations: starting next quarter, you’ll be able to add any metadata that you want to tweets. This was apparently big news, as people were tweeting about it all over the place. But I didn’t really understand why until I read this article on Venture Beat. They’ve got all sorts of ideas about what developers can use this metadata for.
- Twitter will soon be coming out with its own built-in link shortener, so WATCH YOUR BACK, bit.ly. But will it allow for tracking click-throughs?
- Promoted Tweets. News of this actually broke before the conference, but they went into it in more detail at the event. Promoted Tweets are tweets that advertisers will pay for so that they appear at the top of your screen when you search for certain keywords. That being said, Twitter will also use something called a resonance score to measure whether or not that tweet should stay at the top of your screen. If they find that the tweet doesn’t resonate (based on the number of RTs, replies, favorites, etc.), they’ll remove it from the stream and the advertiser won’t have to pay for it.
- The launch of http://dev.twitter.com/ – now anyone can integrate Twitter into their web site with just a few lines of Javascript. Unfortunately I a) haven’t used Javascript in a long time and b) am lazy, so you guys might have to wait a little bit on that.
- The Guardian is going to be using this service (known as @Anywhere) in an interesting way. They’re doing a lot of coverage on the upcoming UK general election, and through @Anywhere, they’ll allow people to connect with the politicians on Twitter via their web site. They explain it more thoroughly here.
Anyhow, in case you’re interested, Justin.tv has videos up from the conference, featuring a special guest appearance from Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas (I’m not kidding).
Music Branding 2.0
So this past Wednesday, I went to an event called Music Branding 2.0, hosted by the awesome Dan Schawbel. I took a bunch of notes on my cell phone, but like any true social media novice, I accidentally deleted them. So, most of this post is from memory (with some details from other sources – you can find those at the end).
Anyhow, the event featured a panel of really interesting people from the music industry. Here was some of their advice/comments:
- These days, there’s so much free content out there that an artist really needs to find a way to stand out. One of the panelists, Andrea Johnson, a Berklee professor and A&R veteran, cited Gnarls Barkley as an example – they received a $30,000 advance for their album and spent all of it on buying copies of “Crazy” on iTunes. Doing so pushed their song up on the download charts, which spurred more downloading, which created a big media buzz.
- Everyone basically agreed that MySpace is dead. But there doesn’t seem to be a clear replacement, though the panel seemed to really like Pandora and last.fm.
- There was some talk about funding your album through Kickstarter – what you do is offer different incentives to get people to donate money. For example, you could write that if people donate $10, they get a copy of your album. If they donate $30, maybe they’ll get a copy of your album and you’ll agree to give them a free live performance at the venue of their choice. If they donate $100, they’ll get the album, the performance, and maybe spend the day with you while you feed them grapes. You get the idea. I actually purchased a book through there last month.
- Another panelist, Amanda Caswell, who runs a music marketing and publicity firm, said that one of the best things that up-and-coming musicians can do is to try to connect with similar bands and musicians, particularly those who are doing a bit better than them, and try to get on their tours/shows. It’s like the equivalent of a blogger doing a guest-post for a bigger blog.
- It’s also useful to tie your band to a cause. It makes for some good cross-promotion, i.e. you might get to play at one of their events, get your name mentioned on the organization’s web site, etc.
- Put your music everywhere. Pandora and last.fm are probably the most popular sites right now, but the panelists also liked Bandcamp, Nimbit, and ReverbNation, among others.
- Try auditioning for NACA (National Association for Campus Activities) – it could lead to booking a college tour. On a similar vein, the panel also recommended seeking out independent filmmakers online and offering them use of your music in their movie.
That’s the gist of what I got. It was a very interesting and informative event, so kudos to Dan for putting it all together. You can find a clip on YouTube, plus Cambridge Day has a really good recap (featuring a quote by me at the end!).
My Secret Love for Google Buzz
I’ll admit. I love me some Google Buzz. I know that a lot of people don’t, including the FTC. But for a social media novice like me, there are some benefits:
- I’m on Gmail/G-chat all the time, so I find it to be an extremely convenient content aggregator. The button is RIGHT there, underneath your inbox, and it’ll immediately tell you whether or not there’s been an update to check out.
- It allows you to connect your Twitter account. So if you’re sharing something on Twitter, but some of your friends aren’t active in that space, they can see that content (the same goes for Flickr). Whether or not my non-Twitter friends are ENJOYING seeing that content, I don’t know. Please don’t unfollow me?
- I had some issues with Google Reader. Many months ago, I was able to set one up, and subscribed to several blogs, but for some reason (let’s call it tech-retardation), I wasn’t able to connect with my friends on it. Google Buzz has taken care of that for me – I can post something directly if I’d like, or I’ll just tweet it/retweet it anyway.
That being said, Buzz has actually now made it much easier to connect with people who are just on Google Reader, so that may be something I revisit later.
- Because I could just never get into FriendFeed.
That being said, Buzz is definitely not perfect. Ongoing FTC-related issues aside, here’s what I don’t like so far:
- There’s a time lapse of at least a couple of hours between when you post on Twitter and when that tweet gets posted to Buzz. And that’s being generous – I don’t know if they’re fixing this problem or not, but last week, I was tweeting things in the late morning/early afternoon and they weren’t showing up on Buzz until 3AM the next day.
- I wish it’d let me be more selective about which tweets show up on Buzz. If the tweet is solely an @reply for someone, it doesn’t appear on Buzz, which is great, but sometimes I’ll go on a retweet spree, and I don’t necessarily want that all showing up. There’s a “delete” function for after it’s been posted, but with the time-lapse for importing tweets, timing on when you’ll know to go in and delete them is tricky.
I much prefer LinkedIn’s system for this – you can connect your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile, but if you want, you can pick and choose which tweets to import by writing #in at the end of them.
- There doesn’t seem to be an option to import Facebook posts. That just seems kind of off to me.
But when all is said and done, I think I’m just a fan of anything that makes me feel like I’m connecting more with my friends and contacts.
Thoughts? Comments? If you haven’t checked Buzz out yet, Social Media Examiner has a good post about getting started.
200 days later…
So it’s been almost 200 days since I last posted…I’d ask you not to throw rocks, but I’m not sure how many people are left reading this blog. I had thought about writing a “blog hiatus” post, but it turns out that I was too lazy for even that.
But I’d been pondering blogging again over the past few weeks and then my good friend Mike (who does The Sounds of Douchebag America and So Fucking Metal (NSFW)) bought me my own domain name for my birthday. Which it turns out, is all it took. So I’m back.
And here’s some of what I should have been blogging about during the last 200 days:
Anyhow, that’s it for now. Coming up: why I secretly love Google Buzz.
Social Media Novice Does Tweetups
A few weeks ago, I made some more headway on this list: I attended my first tweet-up. It was Mashable’s Hyatt4Good Tweetup in Boston. I decided to go for a number of reasons:
- It was for a good cause (or at least I hope that’s what my suggested donation of $20 went towards).
- It was getting a lot of positive buzz online (Mashable had held these tweetups in Hyatts all over the country).
- I thought it would make a good blog post.
- I wanted to fawn over the Mashable people.
And I’m really glad I went. There were some really nice people there (including the ones from Mashable, who were really cool about my blatant fawning) and the venue was really nice (score one for the Hyatt in Downtown Crossing). It was also a learning experience, should I choose to go to future tweet-ups (and I think that I will).
Put your Twitter handle on your nametag
Putting down your name and company is fine, but the Twitter handle is just as necessary. That way, as you talk to people, they can actually tweet about having met you. Brett from Mashable was taking twitpics of people at the event and used people’s Twitter handles to identify them in the photos. About halfway through the event, I finally broke down and had someone write my Twitter username on my nametag (I couldn’t do it myself because that thing was practically glued to my arm).
Things are easier when you have a Blackberry or iPhone
Yes, you can tweet things via text on a regular cell phone (which is what I do), but at these things, it’s much easier to have a Blackberry or iPhone. Particularly since you’re often tweeting the usernames of people that you’ve met and the event’s hashtag. A bigger keyboard makes for easier, faster, and more precise tweeting. That being said, I don’t plan on making the change anytime soon. Unless someone wants to sell me one for $5?*
If you’re going to make a joke, don’t make one where you pretend to not have heard of something Internet-related
I did this with Nielsenwire. I got a lot of strange looks and a couple of, “Oh my god, are you serious?
* Attention cell phone companies. I will do product placement out the wazoo for you if you make this happen. Pretty please?
Examiner.com – A Cool Blogging Opportunity, Just Not For Me
On Tip of the Day Tuesdays, Social Media Novice shares with you a new nugget of valuable Web 2.0 info that she’s learned. If however, she wants to blog about stuff that doesn’t fall into the “tip” category per-se, then she will abstain from doing Tip of the Day Tuesdays for a while, until realizing that they provide a blogging structure that she desperately needs. So, onwards and upwards.
For people who are looking to expand their blog-o-sphere profiles, there is an interesting opportunity available on Examiner.com. The site features a lot of content from bloggers, known specifically as “Examiners”. You can be an examiner for any topic, from just about any city – meaning that you can be anything from a Job Search Examiner to a Music Examiner to a Trophy Wife Examiner (I haven’t seen the last one on the Examiner site yet, but I think that it totally has potential).
The application process is a bit annoying, but not too bad. It’s got some pretty standard stuff – writing samples, post ideas, etc. I applied and got accepted (yay!) but decided that ultimately I wouldn’t be able to handle the commitment (boo!). That being said, don’t let that scare you off. The commitment that I speak of was that they wanted me to write at least one article per week, which wouldn’t be bad if it weren’t for the fact that I have a 9-5, a love for sleep, this poor neglected blog, and the desire to do non-computer related things every once in a while. I can’t handle another commitment right now; it would just be too much for me.
So does the Examiner pay? Technically yes, although practically pennies, so you’re pretty much writing for free. But I think that if you’re looking for more writing experience, if you don’t have a lot going on your resume, or if you just think that it would be cool to write about a topic that you really like, then you should go for it. And then give this blog a shout-out for giving you the idea.
Why Stalk on Facebook When You Can Use LinkedIn?
If you haven’t used Facebook to stalk your friends/acquaintances/exes at some point, then I don’t know what you’re doing reading this blog. In my opinion, that’s one of the premises that social media is based on: wanting to know what everyone else is up to. For many, their Internet-binocular of choice is Facebook.
Do you want to know if the popular girls from high school got fat? Check Facebook. Is your ex-boyfriend seeing someone new? Check Facebook. Is there a party happening this weekend that you haven’t been invited to? Sigh. Check Facebook.
For me however, these days, I’m finding LinkedIn to be almost equally-useful in the spy game. It tells me who’s working where, who’s been laid off, and best of all, if used correctly, it can tell me who’s interested in stalking me. My life is now complete.
Explanation: the right-hand side of your LinkedIn homepage has a section called, “Who’s viewed my profile?”. It will tell you how many people have viewed your profile in the last week or month. And then if you click on it, it’ll give you an idea of which five people most recently looked at your profile. I say “give you an idea”, because it doesn’t come right out and list five names.
Instead, it will tell you the industries and cities of the five people who looked at your profile and link to the search results. People who you’re connected on LinkedIn will show up at the top of your list. So although 30 psych grad students from D.C. may pop up, chances are that it’s that acquaintance listed at the top who was curious about you and took a peek.
The system isn’t foolproof. Sometimes you may have random people that you don’t know looking at your profile. Other times, you may have multiple friends in certain cities. Still, to my knowledge, neither Facebook or Twitter offers this service.
You know why? Because they know their audience. I guess that at the end of the day, most people just want to stalk in peace and anonymity. But if you’re okay with being looked at right back, try it on LinkedIn.
5 Things That Bloggers Should Do, But I’m Too Lazy To Do Most of Them
I’ve read a bit about what it takes to run a successful blog. The problem is that execution-wise, I’m too lazy to do a lot of it. It’s hard work. I could tell you that real life is what always gets in the way (and sometimes it does), but I am nothing if not honest with myself. That being said, here are five suggestions that I would give to new bloggers who are looking to get started, even if I don’t actually act on all of them.
1) Make your content visually appealing
This is not to say that you have to include pictures and video clips (I usually don’t, though it definitely wouldn’t hurt to do so more often). What I mean is that if people wanted to read a book or a long essay, that’s what they would do. They wouldn’t go to a blog for that, unless you are famous.
The moral? Break your content down so that it’s more manageable to read – so that people aren’t put off by the length of your post at first glance. I try to do so by formatting the content of my posts into lists or FAQ’s. Failing that, I’ll use short paragraphs and include section headers.
2) Try to update frequently/regularly
People like to waste time on the Internet. And if you write an insightful, engaging post about something, then chances are that new readers will check back tomorrow and then the next day, to see if you’ve posted something new. Unless you already have a large established audience that subscribes to your RSS feeds (which I don’t), you really shouldn’t pull a Social Media Novice and go weeks without updating. Eventually, people stop checking in and you lose some of those new readers.
3) Write guest posts (as in more than one)
My guest post over at The Lost Jacket brought in some new readers (hi there! I hope you’ve stuck around!). Why haven’t I done more? Because I’m still working on #2 from this list. It’s hard to regularly create content for your own blog and then create more content for someone else’s. But guest posting on a more established blog is a great way to get your name out there and bring in a bigger audience.
It’s also a win-win situation. You get new readers and the other blogger gets a break from creating content. Could be the start of a good relationship.
4) Interact with your audience
If someone comments on your entry, write back! That person has taken the time to actually give a damn about your blog, so you should be grateful for that. That being said, not all comments can be responded to. For instance, what DOES one say to her mother when she writes that she doesn’t like to see profanity on your blog? That conundrum aside, if someone asks you a question or brings up a counterargument, you should respond (but preferably without profanity).
5) Be on the lookout for what’s new
Writing an engaging blog means that you stay on top of what’s new in your field – be it social media, horseback riding, higher education, Harry Potter, etc. There is always plenty written about what’s already been established – it’s much more exciting to read something new. For me, that means that I can’t write about Twitter and Facebook all the time (even if there’s plenty going on). In general, it means stepping out of your comfort zone a bit. I think it’s worth it.
The Wikipedia – It Has Become Self-Aware
Sometimes I can be a bit naive. I’ve made assumptions that turned out to be very, very wrong – thinking that Bolocco burritos are healthy, that snow at Tufts = snow days, and that Gossip Girl‘s Dan and Serena could make it work (the answer is: no, no they can’t. Dan is too much of an ass.)
Here’s another example of my naivete: I thought that making a Wikipedia page would be easy. Turns out that that’s far from the truth, at least when you’ve never done one before.
You’re not just filling in the blanks
The formatting of most Wikipedia pages looks pretty similar, no? I assumed that if you want to start your own page, they’d give you some sort of standard form to fill out, i.e. “Enter in name of section header here. Write article here. List references here.” In reality, that’s not the case at all – you start out with a blank screen in front of you.
It’s not exactly HTML either
Wikipedia allows you to use HTML for some things, like putting lists or tables on your page. But for the most part, it has created this crazy Wikipedia code that you must learn. For serious, there’s a special way to italicize shit and link to shit and create section headers. The Wikipedia – it has become SELF-AWARE.
Even more of a pain in the ass is that you essentially have to go back and forth between HTML and Wikipedia code, remembering which one needs to be used for which function that you’re currently working on for your page.
A newbie can’t upload an image
Let’s say that you sign up for your spiffy new Wikipedia account so that you can make a spiffy new page about a spiffy topic of interest. Well, forget about uploading a spiffy image for your page, because until your account is at minimum four spiffy days old, pictures are prohibited. What is that you say? Four days isn’t too long of a wait? It is for someone like me. After four days, I’ve generally lost interest and have begun obsessing over a new topic of interest. Today’s topic: the word “spiffy”.
That being said, I have a new respect for Wikipedia pranksters – before you can REALLY vandalize someone else’s page, you must first dedicate yourself to the art of the Wikipedia so that you can learn how. It’s a pretty decent amount of commitment to take on just so that you can write that your friend once married Tom Brady and then turned him gay (I’m not making this shit up).
For those of you who think that that sounds like an awesome idea, here’s a link to the Wikipedia tutorial. Enjoy.
Edited to add: In regards to the Tom Brady story, it turns out that the rumor alleged that my friend was his beard and did not actually turn him gay. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
Two Twitter-tastic Things
Two interesting things to check out if you enjoy Twitter and other aspects of social media:
I. Tweet Week: a weekly show discussing the hottest Twitter-related topics.
It’s a web series created by social media maven Julia Roy that you can find on YouTube. There are 16 episodes thus far, and each one is about 3-5 minutes long. Each episode is exclusive devoted to talking about Twitter: the latest apps, new Twitter lingo, celebrity Twitter news, etc. My favorite part? Each week, she posts screenshots of really funny Tweets, such as the following:
“Good Morning America! Time to say the Pledge and clean the guns. If swine flu comes anywhere near me I’ll shoot it in the face.”
“You said you liked the movie “Amadeus” but you meant “Beethoven.” So, when I said ‘that’s nice’ I meant ‘you’re an idiot.’”
“My dad is going to love his IKEA gift and also the fact that I removed the instructions. TJË GYFT TJAT NËVERD ÄSEMMBLLES.”
The YouTube page for Tweet Week is here.
II. CC Chapman – The Twitter 20 Interview on Telling Stories and Humanizing Brands
I met C.C. at The Digital Content NewFront in NYC- he’s a very nice guy who knows his social media stuff. And as such, he did an interview about social media and marketing…over Twitter. He answered 20 questions about web 2.0. live in 140-character bursts (although for most of the questions, he used two or three tweets to answer it completely.) Still, thinking on your feet like that is impressive and the interview is pretty informational.
You can find a transcript of the interview here.
