Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending Feb 16

Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet.  Every Sunday we share some of our favourites with you.

Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!

Lara

This week Twitter accounced that it was going to start ranking tweets.  The idea is that they will be able to help people find the valuable content from the sea of noise. (Mashable)

Bell Let’s Talk Day was this week.  Bell pledge 5 cent per tweet, Facebook share, text and long distance calls to Canadian Mental Health. My stream was FULL of the #BellLetsTalk hashtag, and my Facebook feed clearly showed the success of the campaign as well. There were 96,266,266 actions taken, raising almost $5 million. These actions weren’t all though - I saw people blogging and REALLY talking about mental health.  We all need to talk about mental health more and seeing the power of social media do such good in one day was fabulous to see.

There are so many incredible thought leaders and experts in the field of social media.  When they get pooled together to come up with some of their favourite tips there’s always a great variety of information to learn from. (Social Media Examiner)

You are the future of marketing, we all are.  Social is about community and understanding that and growing your own community is what it’s all about. (Awaken Your Superhero)

Karen

Privacy is one of the hottest topics on the interwebs, but it’s a topic that’s rife with misinformation and misunderstanding. The biggest is around private information and personalization. There is a wide gap between the two and Mitch Joel is working to clarify. (Six Pixels of Separation)

Vine, the new service from Twitter that gives users a platform to create 6 second videos has become all the rage in the few weeks since it was launched. Like any platform or content type, it’s important to remember a few things about what you should and shouldn’t do to ensure you protect yourself. (Grow Business Blog)

I’ve often defended EdgeRank as being something that is useful, but it’s clear that not everyone feels that way. It is clear that others want their feed flooded with every post from friends and pages they’ve liked. Occasionally, I have days that I agree. There’s no doubt in my mind that EdgeRank was implemented as part of a long-term strategy to monetize the network. But what if there was another way for Facebook to make money? (The Next Web)

Do you have a Twitter strategy? Or one for Facebook? How about Pinterest? Having a strategy for individual networks is going to put you in a hamster wheel you can’t get off. It’s more valuable and effective to have an overall content strategy. The platforms are tactics to meet your goals as part of an overall strategy. 

THE MEDIA MESH

What you might have missed this week on the Media Mesh:

Who is watching you? You’d be Surprised!

Introduction to LinkedIn: Who’s using it and how?

It’s all about them: Scott Sigler

What is your content worth to your audience?

Leave us a comment and tell us what some of your favourite reads were this week!

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending Feb 9

Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet.  Every Sunday we share some of our favourites with you.

Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!

Lara

This week there’s a bit of a theme to my content - it’s all about the attitude necessary for being online. To be successful online, you need to be online a certain way. I think these three articles really highlight the things we need to remember:

People go online to find information on making sales and to purchase. They do this for all things, not just technical things. If you aren’t online and responsive in your business, you’re going to miss out. (Brass Tack Thinking)

Be real. Be you. Be open. Be truthful. Be helpful. Be social. The rules are simple, but easier said than done. Not following these rules is a recipe for losing your audience’s trust. (Copyblogger)

Online advertising and campaigns aren’t about posting your newspaper ad online and assuming people will click through and purchase.  Digital marketing needs to be creative and respond to the audience online. Digital Creative needs to be different. (Six Pixels of Separation)

Karen

It hasn’t started yet, but this month I’m going to be doing several blog posts about using LinkedIn. I see so many posts proclaiming that Google+ is the most valuable network you’re not using, but I think that’s overstating the value. For small businesses, LinkedIn is where it’s at. I’m learning to really appreciate the value I can get from it. For now, here are some tips to get you started (Smart Blog on Social Media). Also, is your profile up-to-date? 

One of my favorite recommendations for my clients is to repurpose content. But how does one do this easily when you’re churning out a dizzying amount of information? Organization is the key (Awaken Your Superhero). 

Facebook is consistently criticized for various privacy infractions. The biggest criticism typically comes around ad targeting. Or having ads period (Grow Blog). Pretty soon, though, we’ll know when an ad is tracking behavior on Facebook (MarketingLand) by this little icon to the left. Anytime you see it, you’ll know you’re being tracked. I already saw it once and it seemed to show up beside a bit.ly link. That’s interesting since bit.ly allows users to access stats on clicks for each shortened link. 

Everyone is talking about Vine right now. The app was released by Twitter and it’s being called the Instagram of video (for now). Users can create 6 second videos, which is an odd amount of time. It reminds me of the 140 character limit on Twitter. I haven’t used it yet, but many really smart folks have and they’re coming up with lots of great uses for businesses.

The Media Mesh

What you might have missed this week on the Media Mesh:

Social media practices that drive us crazy

Facebook offers: how they work and how you should use them

Come share your knowledge and guest post for us

Brands had a big win on Twitter when the lights went out at the Superbowl

Buzz and Brilliance is back! Week ending Feb. 2

Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet.  Starting this week we are bringing back Buzz and Brilliance but in a new format - we are both going to pick a selection of our favourite reads to share with you.

Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!

Lara

There are a lot of hackers out there.  People who are trying to hack into big networks, and people who want to steal identities.  This week Twitter had a security breach that could have affected 250,000 users. Have you changed your password?

Continuing down the same line, Spin Sucks also wrote about a recent case of a blogger/”internet junkie” having her image stolen and associated with a fake profile. This article from Spin Sucks covers how Facebook identity theft can happens and what you should do if it happens to you.

Why should small businesses be online - because that’s where people are not only spending their time but also where they’re looking for answers and advice. This infographic on Socialnomics has some really interesting stats on how people use and what they expect from social media for customer service!

Graph search is slowly being released to more people (Karen has it, Lara doesn’t. Do you?) There is great potential for search to really help small businesses, but to be found in searches, you need to make yourself findable. Here are some simple steps from John Haydon on making your page a little bit more Graph Search friendly.

Karen

Because I recently began teaching a course that teaches students how to write for the web, I really enjoyed reading this piece that applies to copy in any format. One of the keys to writing about the same thing everyone else has already written about is putting your own spin on it. Read this article and you’ll see how changing the angle of your ad copy can net great results.

When your content is shared, it can feel like you’ve won a gold medal. On the other hand, when you’re watching your analytics and never see a spike in pageviews/visits, it feels like you’ve come in dead last in the race for attention. These techniques for getting more shares are simple and won’t take up much of your time. They also heavily incorporate the “social” part of social media.

I predict that we’ll see an even bigger explosion of podcasts and videos this year, which means you need to know what equipment works and how to use it.

It’s important to know what’s happening with your company’s social media accounts, especially if an employee is the one managing them. The first mistake HMV made was not really understanding what social media is. Their second, arguably, was in hiring an intern. Their third was forgetting that said intern was still connected to the accounts, even after she was let go. Despite all that, she didn’t do nearly the harm she could have done if she’d wanted to be truly malicious and vindictive.

Buzz, Brilliance & Blogging: On hiatus for Social Capital Conference

Our regular readers are expecting to see the Buzz and Brilliance this morning, but Lara and I are in the midst of final preparations for the Social Capital Conference, which is next Saturday!!!

We’re very excited about the conference and we hope to see all of you next week if you’re able to be there. It’s going to be an incredible day of learning for everyone who attends.

However, these last couple weeks before the conference are extremely busy, so we won’t have time to put together the usual summary of the week’s social media news and commentary. 

The Buzz and Brilliance will return in two weeks on July 28th, but in the meantime we’ll continue to have our regular Tuesday and Thursday blog posts.

Have a great week!

Buzz, Brilliance and Blogging: Week ending July 7

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 biggest news and best advice.

~Karen

Buzz

Here’s a look back at the first year with Google+. It’s not exactly news, but it’s interesting to look at it’s evolution. It’s also interesting to see that some enthusiastic early adopters aren’t quite as enamored anymore. I feel like saying, “I told you so” to the “not a Facebook killer” part.

LinkedIn and Twitter have broken up and I could not be happier! The fact is that Twitter broke things off, but you know what? LinkedIn should be doing the happy dance. These days when I log in (except for one enterprising contact who has hacked their way into keeping tweets in their feed), I found LinkedIn pleasant enough that I want to go back in soon - probably even tomorrow! There’s the same amount of signal, but it’s not being overpowered by the noise.

Twitter’s recent changes to the API (short form for application programming interface) access have lead some to be very concerned about the possibility of third-party apps being cut off. No one should take this lightly. Personally, I rarely use twitter.com and I don’t like the mobile apps that Twitter has built (they aren’t even installed on my devices anymore). Should third-party apps be cut off, I will probably limit my use of twitter pretty drastically. The latest speculation involves a leaked photo of what may be the next iteration of the Twitter for iPhone app and what it may mean based on recent events.

If Twitter starts limiting third party apps, eventually the service may get some real competition. We don’t want the ability to microblog to go away. Otherwise, how else would anyone retweet boneheaded things people tweet? What’s amazing is how many of the pictures are still up after this account retweeted them.

Finally, Twitter promised this week to REVOLUTIONIZE SEARCH! What they did was add search features that exist in a lot of other places already. While they’ve done some good things with this latest update, revolutionary isn’t a word I’d use to describe it. I wouldn’t yawn, either. I rarely use twitter.com, so I’m basically just indifferent about it. 

Facebook has been busy dealing with the email fiasco and coming up with an explanation. If you’re one of the ones who syncs your phone contacts with Facebook, here’s how to fix the email address problem.

Brilliance

I read somewhere that email is your biggest social network and that resonated with me. Just think about how many contacts you’re emailing all the time! That calls for some solid strategy for email use as a sales tool.

We’re inundated with information all the time now, regardless of where we are, thanks to smartphones. This influx of data has given many reason to believe that it’s ruining productivity. But, what if that isn’t always true? Here’s another side to think about. There is a case to be made for using tools at our disposal more efficiently as well. Being more aware of productivity killers is essential as well.

Seeing a brand use social media successfully is exciting. Seeing a Canadian brand highlighted that has numerous fans and detractors is even more interesting. Check out this post about what Rogers is doing to transform relations with its critics.

This is a long article, but well worth the read if you have any struggles at all with establishing (or maintaining) your social media marketing process.

Blogging

After you’ve been blogging for a while, you may start to feel burnt out. Taking a break may be your first instinct, but you might want to try one of these other ideas first.

What are your blogging tenets? Have you ever thought about it? These three - patience, strength and belief - are definitely essential. In particular, when it comes to business blogs, do your writer(s) truly believe in what they’re saying? Lack of belief in something will be noticed by the audience.

There is one risk to blogging valuable content that bloggers will likely never win the war against, but it’s good to be aware of and do what you can to fight back. The scariest part of this is that the content is being used to support “expertise” in social media. Vet the people you’re working with very carefully. They may not be what they seem.

What are the secrets to success in blogging? Here’s one attempt to pinpoint some triggers. I think success cannot be defined by any particular formula, but there is some good advice in here.

App of the Week: I’m just getting into Springpad over the last week, but I’ve been wanting to check it out for quite a while. With Web, iOS and Android apps, this is a powerful tool with a beautiful interface that I’m quickly growing to rely on for notes and tasks. Or at least I’m working on developing the habit. :) If you’re an Evernote user already, you might be interested in reading this overview of how Springpad differs (it has more). If I have time this week, I’m going to check out Ping and report back next week.