The Web Authority

I started out on Twitter a month of two ago and initially loved the interface, the interaction, and reading mundane information posted by others. Now I am looking at Twitter with a different perspective after having used it for a while.

I think if you have a community of close associates Twitter would be great like instant messaging on the fly, but if you don’t, Twitter is now all about marketing, self-promotion, and advertising. If you look at any mature Twitter site, it is chock full of links to eBooks, to people’s blogs, or how to buy their new T-Shirt. In fact it has gotten so bad now, that mainly I use Twitter to post my blog feed and occasionally monitor it for information.

Twitter is mutating as people figure out how to use it and integrate it into their lives. I do still feel that it’s a fine tool for a network of colleagues or close friends, but for me I am seeing it as a marketing vehicle and I’m not sure I want to read other people’s advertising messages in the rare free time that I have.

I’m sure that the makers of Twitter did not intend for the application to become an ad vehicle, but take a look at my Twitter friends posts and that’s all you see. http://twitter.com/mccordweb

I have been watching this trend and thought it was a good blog post. Social media networking started out as a must have for the everyday person. When MySpace was new, you just had to have a page. Then there was Facebook, then LinkedIn. All the sudden there were too many sites to participate in and it became difficult to find out what you should do and where you should invest your time.

I have all these tools in play, but have found that the social networking is just too time consuming to do personally. What I have seen is all the sudden the PR field has jumped with both feet into social media networking and in a stroke of genius now is packaging social networking sites with viral video, and online and offline push with an effort to spin a client into the stratosphere.

Is it workable, yes you bet, these tools in the hands of a PR expert can get the online media exposure that some clients and products can really benefit from. I have one marketeer who is doing just that and just got a call from Microsoft that may turn into a consulting gig to teach their staff about social media.

What I found totally interesting was that the PR world is not just selling the social media aspect but by packaging set up as a part of multiple services they are hiding the cost of the set up needed to get going and getting a  big fee in the process. Truthfully anyone can set up these account for free, but this is where the parallel ends, it is what you do with them that make the difference. Having the account open means nothing, it is about building, linking, and the viral video aspect that makes these programs different and possibly worth the money you will spend.

Although for many of my clients the social networking medium is a novelty and a must have, but what do you do with it once you have it, the PR firm puts social media on steroids. This trend is definitely worth watching. Here’s just one example that I have found recently that is worth reading about.

Ever go to a social networking site and see a new “friend” who has literally thousands of connections? How about at Twitter how do people get this number of people to follow them and find this many people to follow? How can you get this kind of activity on Twitter?

If you’re new to Twitter, start first by searching for people in your field, search on a keyword phrase like Internet marketing, or even just search on your family name. Twitter will return a slew of people who match your category and then click in to just follow as many as possible. You can always delete someone later so initially you are after volume. You will be amazed at how many people in return will choose to follow you.

Then as someone follows you, visit their page to see who they follow and select the people that you want to follow too. It’s that easy. After a while you will find that there are some people who seem to post on Twitter every five minutes. You can select following from your own Twitter sidebar and just block them.

You’ll find that when people first start with Twitter they will write every little thing that they are doing and after a while will settle down. Those that don’t just block them unless you really want to know what they ate for lunch.

What I like about Twitter is the ability to watch literally hundreds of mini blogs in a moment. I pick up interesting tidbits, cool applications, and new blogs all the time. I use Twitter to promote my own blog and to watch what others think are important. I’ve even used Twitter Feed to add my blog posts automatically to Twitter and Twitter applications to bring my Twitter posts automatically to my own blog sidebar. Twitter is just a new version of social media and one that you can put to use for your website and business. The possibilities are endless. If your family and colleagues are on Twitter, you’ll have more the friend and social aspect and you can even make your posts private and available only to them. Twitter is just a cool new way to connect.

Some of the ways you could use Twitter for business are to post new products and links, if you’re a real estate agent post your new listings on Twitter, if you have an ebook you can offer tidbits and link to your purchase page, if you are monetizing your blog point to your blog. Think of what you could do with Twitter to put it to work for you pointing others to your content and online services.

My Twitter ID is McCordWeb, add me to your Twitter panel and I’ll follow you.

“What to do, what to do… update LinkedIn or Facebook? Yikes, I haven’t even looked at my MySpace site in a month.” The busy professional has a hard time finding time to keep social networking sites up-to-date and they really only work for you when you are actively “working the network”.

This is why I recommend selecting just one social networking site and then sticking with it. For my age group and profession the social networking site of choice is LinkedIn. Most of my clients are there and this is the site that I get the most requests from to add new friends.

College kids and the younger professionals are using Facebook a lot and nearly no one is using MySpace anymore, unless you are a band. The ebb and flow of the popularity of social networking sites makes it hard to choose one and stick with it.

The reason I like LinkedIn is that the set up time was quick and that I do not have to invest a lot of time in maintaining or updating the site. Social networking is not for everyone and some people will simply have more time than others to manage their sites. Others will see no benefit to investing even a millisecond on sites like LinkedIn or Facebook. For me, this is why I like Twitter so much. Twitter is part blog and part social network. Although there isn’t the friend interaction on Twitter, unless you have social friends there, the ability to see what is happening with others in your field in regards to sites they are watching, new information they feel is important, and the speed in which information is shared, is what makes this flavor of social networking popular for the busy professional. Who doesn’t have one nanosecond to write 140 words about what they are doing right now”?

You can follow me in Twitter from the Twitter Feed bar just to the right in my blog’s sidebar. My Twitter ID is McCordWeb. See you there!

Well the deal is down for the count. Facebook has just stated today that Google’s fledgling Friend Connect violates it’s terms of service and will block its use of their network. You can read the full post here.

Not only is this really bad news for Google as Facebook was the most important site on its implementation list, but it is bad news for Friend Connect users. Without Facebook the other services, other than LinkedIn, in the Friend Connect network are marginally used.

The only way that Friend Connect will really get off the ground is to have other great social networking sites buy into the program.

But does Facebook’s decision surprise you? Not me, Facebook is in talks with MSN so why would MSN want to let Google has access to one of its “cherry” potential properties. Let Microsoft implement its own version of Friend Connect tied in to Facebook and that’s sure to be winning combination and a perfect ad vehicle for Microsoft adCenter - you go Microsoft!

The war between MSN and Google will be ramping up again for sure on this one.