Okay, so people who write are writers. Those who report news are reporters. Market products or services? Marketers.
What are people called who communicate online with people — for personal and/or professional reasons? SM’ers? SM’ites?
Or, if there’s no noun, what’s the verb? Bloggers blog. But what if you use the full array of social media services?
I feel stupid saying I “use social media” or I engage in online conversations. Please help!!!
- SM’ers?
- SM’ites?
- Online communicators?
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Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations move over. Sure, Tony travels to every corner of the world, meets outrageous and weird people, and tastes raw eyeballs and God know what else.
Not so different from me exploring social media. One day I discover widgets, the next I claim my blog on Technorati. That night I download plug-ins, upload to YouTube, and venture into my own strange and weird social media communities.
In the last two weeks, I’ve subscribed to some great sites, bookmarked my way around the web, and best of all, found some incredible guides to show me the way. Mack Collier’s The Viral Garden and Lee Lefever’s RSS in Plain English to name two.
Only real difference. I’ve done it all from my armchair. Oh yeah, and I’m not puking my guts out!
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Tags: anthony bourdain, lee lefever, Mack Collier, Viral Garden
Gosh darn it, I suddenly had a flash. In the last two weeks I’ve come from nowhere and here I am — ready to take over social media. I’m Joe Six-Blog, I love to wink while I post, and the other day I read a blog someone stuck in front of me (I don’t know which blog it was) and I thought, hey, I can do that. The whole world will welcome me. I’m ready to be one-blog away from running the SM world.
And why shouldn’t I be? I’m just like so many of you who have never really blogged or heard of Technorati. I have a diverse family, some who blog, some who don’t — it doesn’t matter to me. I’m very tolerant (although there are a number of you who I think the government should take away your right to blog — you know who you are.)
And just because there are people out there like Chris Brogan or Mack Collier (Chris and Mack, can I call you by your first names?) and who have huge followings and lots of substance-type stuff to say that might help people in this tough social media climate, I think you should come to my blog. I’m not like those darn elitist bloggers who want you to check them out just because they have a clue about social media and lots of experience offering real advice and insights.
So Mack, get off my back, step out of my way, and send me your bloggers. I’m spunky and I’m the queen of SM.
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Tags: Chris Brogan, Mack Collier, Sarah Palin, social media
I’m really enjoying social media. I love finding great sites like ProBlogger and even when I’m not posting or reading others’ posts, I’m thinking about it. It’s addictive, isn’t it?
But here’s my question. Is the only way to be able to have lots of conversations with people on their blogs, on your blog, is if you use Facebook and Tweeter and other social networks? See, I’m comfortable with Facebook among my friends — people I know personally. But the idea of opening all that up — my personal space — to others who are interested in the issue I blog on (social media) is just a little uncomfortable and even scary.
So, here’s what I’d like to ask:
- Is there a line you can draw between your personal space online and your blogging life?
- What forms of social media must you engage in to interest people in your blog?
- Does anyone relate to this concern of mine, and if so, how have you handled it?
I’d really appreciate your insights on this. Thanks so much.
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Tags: privacy, ProBlogger, social media
Is this thing working? My RSS
Quick questions. Has anyone tried to subscribe to my RSS? Does it work? Thanks.
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I just love this advice from Robert Moskowitz says small businesses should blog. Here’s how he puts it:
I do feel like small organizations and companies do have a real advantage over big corporations in terms of blogging. They can give something a try without having to go through a big bureaucracy to get it through, without having to set off a turf battle or get the lawyers involved. I think that they can more easily stick their toe in the water.
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So many experts. So little time. Please help me. As I try to learn this whole social media thing, I look to the experts. Here are the ones I’ve discovered but obviously there are lots more. Who do you turn to? Please take a second and vote. Then you can see what others think.
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Tags: Poll Daddy Poll
Okay, so I’ve been trying as you know to get a grip on this social media thing, and here’s how I see it. Picture a wheel — like the one below!
Step 1. Set goal: You gotta figure out what you want to use social media for. How will it fit with the rest of your outreach efforts? Who is your audience? What insights do you have to share and what would you like to learn? So, for me, I want to learn about social media and so I want to use social media to reach out to the experts through this new medium. I want to build relationships with them, hear their thoughts, and get their feedback to what I’m thinking.
Step 2: Search and select. There used to be some expression about cherry-picking. First thing you do is go where the cherries grow. (It’s something like that!) So, I used Goggle Blog Search and Technorati and entered search terms like “social media” and “blogging” and then checked out the sites writing about it. I also subscribe to marketingprofs.com and did a search and found a number of great blogs and articles. Then, after searching, I selected the blogs I thought were best and subscribed to them. That way I could check them out each day by going to my Google Reader.
Step 3: Listen. Actually, by listen I mean read the new blog entries and learn. In some cases a blog post would lead me to another blog that I wanted to add to my Google Reader.
Step 4: Reply. This is a big one. After reading a blog, if it made a really great point or I had something I wanted to share, I have begun replying to some of the blogs. I actually received a response from social media guru Chris Abraham. Can’t tell you how cool that was. Anyway, this is a huge step. It’s real important for them to start seeing you participate on their turf. I need to do lots more of this.
Step 5: Blog. Thus the creation of The Blog Chronicles — what you’re reading now. For this, I signed up (for free) for WordPress.com and here’s where I’ve spent a ton of my time. I’m going through a huge learning curve, and as you can see, I’ve got so much left to learn. But I really think the only way to learn it is to plow ahead, hope for feedback (which I’ve gotten very little of, hint, hint!) I’ve added RSS to my site but so far no one’s felt the need to subscribe to my site. (I remain hopeful!) I’ve also tried different things like using Poll Daddy to add an interactive poll to my sidebar. (I really thought that would excite people but so far I’ve only gotten one person to do it and that was out of pity.)
Step 6: Drive traffic. So far I’ve been trying to drive traffic to my site by linking to other sites and commenting on other sites. Here’s where I need tons more help. In the last week I’ve gotten about 70 visits to my site (thank you each and every one). In addition to linking and replying, I’ve tried to make this site as interesting as possible, but clearly I have a long way to go.
So, that’s my wheel. For me, it helps me think about where different tools like Technorati and Google Reader and RSS all fit in. And things like Twitter and Facebook and other social networks — well, I’m not quite sure where they fit in to this wheel or if the wheel needs to be refined. That’s why I’m hoping for lots of comments this time. Fingers crossed.
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Tags: google, social media wheel, Technorati
Okay, Poll Daddy it is.
So, at 1 a.m. I was still trying to place a really cool Vizu interactive poll on my sidebar so everyone would come to my blog and answer my question “Who is your favorite social media guru.”
Took until a few minutes ago to figure out that YOU CANNOT VIZU ON WORDPRESS.COM. (Wish they had just said that upfront.) However, I have now posted my Poll Daddy Poll on my sidebar so please check it out and tell me what you think. I’m dying to hear.
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Tags: interactive poll, Poll Daddy, Vizu
So, I was looking at The Viral Garden for some ideas, and on the sidebar I noticed a really cool interactive poll. It looked really cool and I thought, “I wanna do that. Maybe more people will come and visit and give me their ideas.” So, I found out that Vizu and Poll Daddy Poll both let you instantly design your own polls that you then can pop on your blog.
First, I used Vizu and loved how it looked. But, I must have tried 200 times and 2 hours later (it’s 1 a.m. now) and nothing. Every time I exported it, all it did was show the words Opinion Polls and Market Research — without a poll.
I switched to Poll Daddy Poll, which has partnered with WordPress, and it worked, but the look of the poll was pretty lame. So, here I have this great poll but you can’t see it.
I figured out the problem, just not the solution. Every time I copied the whole long HTML code into the text box, half of the code disappeared after I saved it. Incomplete code, no poll.
So, thanks to Vizu, I’m exhausted and sad. If I had paid anything for their service, I’d make them give it to me for free. Anyone else try using Vizu and WordPress together? Any tips?
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Tags: Poll Daddy, Poll Daddy Poll, Viral Garden, Vizu
The Blog Chronicles: One woman's journey 
