Buzz, Brilliance and Blogging: Week ending May 5

Every week I compile a list of the noteworthy social media news (Buzz), balanced with valuable commentary (Brilliance) and some good advice about Blogging as well. The links that follow are to sites and blogs that I read on a regular basis - consider them recommended reading for you too. Or you can just come back here each week for a taste of what stuck out to me.

~Karen

Buzz

You can now indicate on Facebook whether you wish to donate your organs or not. Whether people actually post it as a status or not, there’s been an 800% rise in registrations in California! I’m still waiting for the option to show up on my profile. 

The other big news from Facebook this week was the launch of Facebook Offers. This functionality is being rolled out slowly, but Lara and I already see it on one of the pages we admin. If you have a small business, you will want to use this feature! Here’s how you can request it for your page if you don’t already have it.

Twitter is making some tweaks to its user interface (UI) to make it better. The Twitter.com experience has always been one that many (including myself) have refused to partake in. Fortunately, the updates since January have worked really well and I use Twitter.com more than I ever did before. Regardless of where you tweet, it’s good to know if your tweets are worth reading or not.

Brilliance

Do you read TOS and privacy policies? Neither do I, but we really should. Here’s just a few things you’ll want to know from the privacy policy of any web service. Of course, if you don’t like or trust the privacy,there are ways to stop these sites from tracking you.

“Shun social media for business at your own peril.” Says Mitch Joel in this post about social media and business to business (B2B) use. It oversimplifies it a bit, but B2B companies need to use social media like B2C does. You’re creating relationships with individuals, not corporations.

Jason Falls went on a bit of a rant about Klout this week and it’s an interesting read. Love it or hate it, Klout isn’t going away. Though if you hate it, perhaps you should delete your automatically generated account.

Blogging

This post really resonated with me, because I don’t always answer a question or solve a problem with my posts. But if you do, you will not fail to provide value and everyone is short on time these days - we need content that serves a purpose. 

Many people have questions about how to do this or that even months or years after they’ve launched a blog. Here’s a few of those questions answered.

This is one I’m working on. Ergo, this weekly roundup keeps getting shorter. Have you noticed?

Buzz, Brilliance and Blogging: Week ending April 28

Every week I compile a list of the noteworthy social media news (Buzz), balanced with valuable commentary (Brilliance) and I recently added Blogging to the mix as well. The links that follow are to sites and blogs that I read on a regular basis - consider them recommended reading for you too. Or you can just come back here each week for a taste of what stuck out to me.

~Karen

Buzz

It’s probably not a huge surprise to you if I say that women are more likely than men to have a blog or a Facebook page. This is good information for marketers to be aware of when they’re creating and distributing content.

Speaking of Facebook, they have been busy little bees this week making tweaks and changes. First off, the larger profile photos I mentioned last week are now live for profiles and pages. They’ve been making some design changes to how your friends are displayed on your timeline (I noticed this yesterday on mine.) Another new addition is trending articles. I also mentioned them last week and so far, meh. They’re all from readers, so I don’t find it’s useful with such a major limitation.

I still need to download it for mine, but if you’re an iOS (iPad) or Android user, you might want to check out LinkedIn’s new app. Apparently, it’s quite impressive from what I’ve heard so far. Based on this description, I’m quite looking forward to trying it out.

In other mobile app news, you can now know your Klout wherever you go if you’re an iPhone user. Of course, we have yet to see the Klouchebag app come out, so I don’t believe we have a complete mobile picture of influence without that.

Twitter spam occasionally reaches obnoxious proportions. That was the case a while ago, though it’s slowed down. Lately, I’ve heard that Twitter is working on solutions, but perhaps some of the problem is can be solved with greater daily vigilence by individuals?

Google+ has released a share button, which is different from the +1 button, but I actually wonder if that isn’t just more confusing to have two. I often share content using the +1 button, so that part seems redundant at the very least.

Brilliance

As a business, have you realized yet that social media is the easiest way to scale word of mouth marketing? As a client recently said to me, “social media is a big mouth”.

Email has gotten out of control for me, so I’m very interested in tools to help me manage it. For a change this week, I’m also going to try ignoring my email inbox. (And turn of notifications on your phone.) Come back next week and tell me if you’re more productive.

Do you display your Twitter stream on your business web site? You might want to think about reconsidering that decision.

Blogging

I said there probably wouldn’t be anymore to share from Mitch Joel’s challenge, but I was wrong. And I want to share Amber Naslund’s in particular because when she writes about certain things like her philosophy (“I write to discover what I think.”), I relate to it so closely.

Do you want to know if you’re doing things wrong with your blog? Sometimes we need the constructive criticism/suggestions to help boost our efforts to the next level. Scan this article and see if you find three things you can work on this week to make your blog better. 

Blogging regularly can be challenging. Topic ideas can feel dry or boring or uninspiring. Rarely are there blogging memes that businesses can legitimately participate in, but I’m contemplating doing this one.

Fun Stuff

There are such creative, big personalities out there in the world and the Internet is allowing us to see them in action. This is one creative campaign to sell a car.

Buzz, Brilliance and Blogging: Week ending April 21

Every week I compile a list of the noteworthy news (Buzz) from my week of reading. I like to balance news with commentary, but it has to be really valuable for my readers (Brilliance). I recently added Blogging to the mix as well. The links that follow are to sites and blogs that I read on a regular basis - consider them recommended reading for you too. Or you can just come back here each week for a taste of what stuck out to me.

~Karen

Buzz

I’m going to lead off with a story that no one seems to care about based on how much it’s been covered. Klout launched brand pages this week. (Are you excited yet?) I saw one story about it: this one. Does this mean that we’ve finally relegated Klout to the level of importance it deserves?  

Facebook has given notice this week that your profile picture size is about to change as of April 26th. Be prepared to modify your integrated cover photos accordingly. Here’s the statement that came in this week’s Facebook Page Update email:

On April 26, we will be updating the size of the profile picture on all Pages. We are letting you know about this small change in advance so that you can update your profile picture on April 26. The new profile picture will be 160 x 160 pixels and will sit at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the Page.

Facebook is testing a newsfeed insert that will highlight trending articles. Oddly, this will only include articles from social reading apps rather than curate listings of most shared links. Too bad - I see fewer and fewer social reading app links in my newsfeed. Are people still using them?

Who’s excited about real-time Facebook insights? (Besides me.) This is great news!

It will be extremely interesting to see how One iota does with its self-service deals app for Facebook. If their business model is better than Groupon, it could be a very useful way for business owners to extend special deals to Facebook fans. And imagine if you were able to give an extra discount for check-ins. The marketing possibilities are really good with this one.

Every time the Olympics roll around and I hear all the new (and old, recurring) restrictions the IOC is putting on use of anything to do with the Olympics, I just have to ask if they care at all about garnering goodwill, because this is not the way to do it.

The Red Cross has thought of an innovative way to raise awareness while getting donations. Donate $10 and watch your Twitter avatar break apart and then be restored - much like what the Red Cross does with disaster relief. With all the criticism about slacktivism in social media, it will be very interesting to see how well this campaign does.

Google pulled the plug on Picnik this week, but all is not lost. You can still do a photo collage with iPiccy!

Brilliance

Sincerity in social media is essential, particularly if you want to be taken seriously as a business. Jon Loomer gives some great advice specific to Facebook in his guest post on All Facebook and for general social media use on his own blog.

Related to sincerity is Chris Brogan’s post about earning attention.  Building mutual, genuine relationships with everyone isn’t possible. Capturing the attention of someone with a large following is possible, but do you really want to be known as a squeaky wheel? It’s far better to earn that attention by making a valuable contribution without expectations.

The discussion of the changing nature of advertising has been going on for decades. VCRs and later PVRs threatened advertisers because so many recorded TV shows and fast-forwarded through the commercials. Web content and streaming have taken this discussion in a whole new and interesting direction. 

Some stories are just brilliant because it’s so incredible that they happen. 

Blogging

One of my must-read blogs is Spin Sucks by PR professional, Gini Dietrich, and I should mention that a big reason I started reading is because the name appealed to me. Gini published her response to Mitch Joel’s challenge this week and I think having a set time for blogging daily sounds wonderful. 

One thing I’ve learned from all of the bloggers who shared their process is that they work very hard to maintain a steady stream of great content that exhibits their expertise. 

That said, if you’re looking for ways to take your own blog to the next level, one thing you will want to do is develop your blogging skills. You can start by participating in one of these twitter chats that focus on blogging and reading BloggingPro isn’t a bad idea either.

Do you get stuck on your own blogging process? Here are “just a few” ways to shake it up and maybe even shake you out of writer’s block and make your content stronger than ever.

Are you thinking of starting a blog? Twitter account? Facebook? Any other social network? Before you do, make sure you ask yourself a few questions and answer honestly because content marketing isn’t for everyone.

As anyone reading this post each week knows, I don’t believe in the #4 tip on this list of ways to get more blog comments, but many of the other tips are right on. My #1 tip is not to use captcha as well. Just think about the mobile users and how much a pain captcha is for them. 

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending April 14 (Triple B Edition)

Every week I compile a list of the noteworthy news (Buzz) from my week of reading. I like to balance news with commentary, but it has to be really valuable for my readers (Brilliance). This week I’m adding Blogging to the mix. We’ll see if it becomes a permanent addition, but this week it was necessary. The links that follow are to sites and blogs that I read on a regular basis - consider them recommended reading for you too. Or you can just come back here each week for a taste of what stuck out to me.

It’s been a while, so I’m glad to be back sharing the latest and greatest of the world of social media with you. There’s a lot that’s gone on in the last few weeks that the B&B has been on hiatus, but I’m going to stick to the past week. Not that it wasn’t important. I just don’t want this post to take 6 hours to write or read. :)

Enjoy!

-Karen

Buzz 

Pinterest announced something this week that many are excited about - the ability to choose your board cover. However, I think this has limited usefulness. The fact is, most people will visit your Pinterest profile once. The day they go to follow your board(s). That doesn’t mean it’s not nice. Being able to customize is just one more way you can reinforce your visual identity.

If you’re looking to learn more about how your Pinterest efforts are being received, you might want to check out Pinerly. It’s an analytics tool specifically for Pinterest.

By far, the biggest news this week is Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for the bargain basement price of $1 billion. There’s been a bit of backlash over the purchase, with some Instagram users vowing they’ll delete their accounts over privacy concerns. This stems from the fact that Facebook will have access to a wealth of location data stored on Instagram with photos. The supposed backlash didn’t stop Instagram’s growth - it became the #1 app on the app store for the first time after the announcement. I usually avoid mentioning this type of story here because it’s not at the stage where it’s going to affect user experience or impact engagement. But it’s certainly good to be aware.

Google+ rolled out a new interface design that’s really quite nice!* There are giant avatars now and a cover photo. It’s quite a different feel than what you see with Facebook. Many would argue (and I can’t disagree) that the Google+ single column beats out Facebook’s double-column timeline. It is easier to read. Have you checked it out yet?

*It’s interesting to note that there’s been talk here and there this week that people are seeing larger profile pictures on Facebook Timeline. This is clearly a direct response to the Google+ design update. It seems intermittent so far - I’ve been looking all week and only spotted it for the first time on a live page just today. However, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we’re about to see our first change to the Timeline design. Oh yes, just six weeks after we all scrambled to publish our timelines, we’ll have to make sure the new profile picture size doesn’t mess it all up again.

Brilliance

I rarely add Seth Godin’s posts to the Brilliance section, because that just wouldn’t be fair. When is there not some brilliance in them? I couldn’t not add this one. It gives a framework for taking in criticism/complaints and deciding how seriously to take them. When you’re using social media, those things are inevitable. Putting the proper perspective on them can save so much stress. Besides, as my dad would say, “Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if they’re wrong.” 

“If you want to be charismatic, your mind can’t wander while you’re one-on-one with a customer or colleague.” Do you struggle with this? I have and I’m going to check out this book. As a business owner, I know I owe it to my clients in particular to be fully present when I’m with them.

Ask anyone why it’s important for businesses and organizations to participate in social media and invariably “being where your customer/client/members are” is on the list. It’s become necessary for social media to be part of any comprehensive marketing/public relations/communications strategy. So, it’s noteworthy when an organization decides to pull the plug on their social media channels. 

Blogging

I added this section this week for one reason. Mitch Joel wrote about his process and challenged others to follow suit. The result has been a very interesting peek into the minds of many of my favorite bloggers. Perhaps sometime Lara and I will share our individual blogging process with you as well.

Chris Penn was the first blogger I saw respond to Mitch’s challenge. Chris’ blog always teaches me new ways to look at data. The man is brilliant. Reading about his process was a treat. 

Mark Schaefer’s was the next post I got to see. I’m a little in awe of the fact that Mark writes everything for the week on Sundays. I barely have time to put this post together lately!

I also need to learn how to be more like Jason Falls and write, self-edit and cue my posts in 30 minutes. I’ve spent as long as 6 hours on a blog post. If I counted the reading time I spend each week for this post, we’d be up to double-digits.

I’ll keep an eye out for more of these posts over the coming week. I hope it’s a good one for you!

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending March 10

Every week I compile list of the noteworthy news (Buzz) from my week of reading. I like to balance news with commentary, but it has to be really valuable for my readers (Brilliance). The links that follow are to sites and blogs that I read on a regular basis - consider them recommended reading for you too. Or you can just come back here each week for a taste of what stuck out to me.

- Karen

Buzz

It should come as no surprise that the announcements from last week’s fMC have spilled over into this week with questions about what Facebook Premium means for users/advertisers on the site. Additionally, with a post-fMC addendum to Facebook’s SEC filing, there is speculation about Timeline competing with Premium.

Other potentially damaging news for Facebook (and businesses relying on it) is the question of sites who use Facebook for login authentication. Just what DO their users do when Facebook is down? 

For users, potentially troubling news this week comes from reports that revealed how Facebook moderation of reported content is handled. Am I concerned about this news? No. Because I think it is the responsibility of each user to ensure that what they share online is something they’re comfortable becoming public - whether it’s a login site or not.

Finally, if you own a business, what do you think of Timeline? Some think Timeline is hurting small businesses. Others think the challenges businesses face with timeline are minimal and not insurmountable. I think time will tell. Businesses who take an active interest in the Facebook channel and learn more should do well.

A truly enterprising Pinterest fan released a bookmarklet (PinAQuote.com) this week that allows users to pin quotes. In true Pinterest style, the result is clean, simple and won’t clutter the site. I hope. The direct news about Pinterest isn’t quite as good. It has been confirmed that spam, phishing scams and other nefarious content is now making its way into the feeds onto our beloved Pinterest.

Twitter has taken one more step to become a truly global giant by incorporating right to left tweeting. This makes 28 languages that the world can tweet in. 

One fascinating new use of Twitter is the announcement of the arrangement between AmEx and Twitter that allows users to tweet coupons. This could be just the beginning of using the platform for social commerce and another interesting way for brands to interact with individuals as well.

One Twitter exec publicly proclaimed that the site needs a re-design of the interface. This is interesting, given all the recent work that’s been done, but it’s not untrue. In their bid to keep the site as simple as possible but grow it to be more robust at the same time, it’s actually a little confusing to navigate and find what you need in some areas (and I’m an experienced user saying this). Here’s hoping they get it right next time.

Google+ hangouts are now more accessible to those who have visual impairments, thanks to an accessibility extension that uses text-to-speech technology for the chat sessions. 

There’s been a lot of coverage in the last couple weeks about the information that was released with numbers stating that visitors to Google+ stayed only an average of 3 minutes in January. Vic Gundotra claims that the number isn’t necessarily accurate based on the fact that people are using Google+ optimized services. That may be true, but I think it’s safe to say that Google+ can’t claim to be anywhere near the ballpark of Facebook’s 7.5 hours.

Brilliance

One of the ways to determine the return on investment (ROI) of social media is to endeavor to undertake activities that are inherently measurable. It can be done. But is it really necessary to measure everything you do? 

I think having a blog post reserve is one of the smartest things any blogger can do. It avoids the problem of coming up with content the night before you want to publish. Unfortunately, I’ve got too many blogs and not enough time to have much more than an editorial calendar filled with intent. I really hope I don’t break a hand or finger any time soon. I’ve got some work to do. 

You think Facebook is the biggest social network in the world, don’t you? What would you say if I told you it isn’t? Email is. Think about your list of contacts in your email client (Gmail, Outlook, etc.). It’s probably full to bursting. Businesses who leverage the power of email are onto something good if they’re doing it right. Here’s a few ideas for content to share with your email list subcribers..

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the data that web sites are collecting from users - particularly companies like Facebook and Google. The potential uses for marketers are endless, but users find it creepy. Some want to be tracked for a better web experience. Most just want to ensure their privacy isn’t violated. So, as Mitch Joel points out, it’s very important that marketers don’t go over the line into creepy, though that can be easier said than done with the range of views out there.

*****

Want to learn more about social media but don’t know where to begin? Wellman Wilson is putting on a social media workshop March 20th where we’ll talk about Twitter, Facebook and setting up a strategy. Find out more here!