Social Media Landscape

If you haven't done so already, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

.

When it comes to Social Networking Sites people generally belong to at least 10 of them. I personally have profiles on well over 20 Social Networking Sites. However trying to choose the top 10 Social Networking Sites is a difficult task.

In fact, I don’t think the task should be done by just one person, but by the Social Media Landscape itself. I think the main thing is to break them down into categories. Since there’s so many different types of Social Sites out there even categorizing them is a daunting task.

So this is what I’ve come up with:

CATEGORIES:

• Community

• Sharing

• Communication

• OddBall

PLEASE GO TO THIS LINK TO TAKE THE SURVEY: http://socialmedialandscape.com/survey/public/survey.php?name=SNTop10

Since this is only a top 10 list, I think there should be 3 sites listed in Community, Sharing, Communication. There should be that one Oddball site that you think is cool, but also thinks it’s odd, so just one entry there please.

Once I receive all of your recommendations I’ll compile the results for all to see. I’ll also let people know how to reach you on your favorite sites. Make sure you put your Profile URL or name next to each site you list.

(Example: Twitter.com - http://twitter.com/mscopeland)

What I would like YOU to do is post 3 of your favorite sites in each of the categories in order of favoriteness.

PLEASE GO TO THIS LINK TO TAKE THE SURVEY: http://socialmedialandscape.com/survey/public/survey.php?name=SNTop10

Not only do you get to vote for your favorite site, you get to have A LOT OF FOLLOWERS on those sites!

Make sure you register under the BIG RED ARROW to get the results of the survey!

6 simple steps to start listening to social media

By Rebecca | August 10, 2008

categories: social media

I’ve been reading Groundswell for the last couple of days, and as I’ve been reading about big-budget social media strategies, I’ve been thinking about all the simple things a company can do to start to get their bearings in the social media space without dropping tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Starting with some free tools that give you an overview of your company’s social media landscape can prepare you to make good decisions when it does come time to start spending money.

One of the key social media strategies that Groundswell identifies is listening; in fact, it’s sort of the gateway drug of social media, because once you start listening you’ll see all the conversations there are to participate in: conversations about how to improve your product, conversations about what your competitors are doing wrong (or right), conversations among your customers as they define your brand for yourself. There are certainly hosted applications on which you can spend a hefty sum, and they will give you pretty charts and graphs. But if you’re just getting started, some much simpler — and free — tools you can use.

1. Get a Google Reader account. These accounts are free, and if you don’t already have one, you can set one up easily by going to reader.google.com. Google Reader lets you organize feeds of information into folders for easy navigation, and also lets you search old posts, share and email posts, and bookmark favorites. Perhaps best of all, it will let you keep track of which feeds you’re reading so you can thin the herd over time. Do this before you do anything else; it’s an important part of several of the other steps.
2. Create a search strategy. Don’t just dive into Google; spend an hour or two writing down what terms you’ll search for. This list will include your brand name and products, obviously, but should also include competitor products, generic descriptions of your product, and combinations thereof that include words like “suck” or “awful” or “recommend” or “issue”. Having a repeatable search strategy at the outset will help you establish some baseline metrics for your ongoing social media efforts.
3. Search Google using your search strategy. Look for social sites, such as forums or blogs, that have written about your search terms. If you find an interesting site or forum or blog, add its RSS feed to your Google Reader account.
4. Search social bookmarking sites using your search strategy. These sites — such as Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Reddit — can point you to the information that others find interesting about the keywords you’ve included in your search strategy. Again, add the RSS feed for any interesting sites to your Google Reader account.
5. Search for blogs using your search strategy. Google’s Blogsearch is an excellent tool for this; use the same search terms you used in your Google search to see what comes up; you can sort by recency and relevance, and initially relevance will offer you the results you’re after. Explore the posts that come up, and then explore the blogs those posts are on and the blogs those posts link to. Don’t be afraid to click around to see where you end up; part of the magic of blogs is that they uncover unexpected connections. As you find interesting sites, add their RSS feeds to your Google Reader account.
6. Set up search result feeds to help you discover new contributors. While you’re searching for blogs using Google’s Blogsearch, switch to a date-based view for your search term and add the resulting feeds to your Google Reader account (there’s a link at the bottom of the Google Blogsearch results page to do this). These will alert you as new participants join the conversation.

Once you have the initial tools in place, it’s time to start listening. While the steps leading up to this are pretty straightforward, this part is a bit of an art. You’ll want to have an eye out for patterns, for early warnings, for opportunities. You’ll want to carefully weigh when to respond and when to let sleeping dogs lie. And you’ll want to be thinking, gradually, about how all of the information you’re gathering will influence your ongoing social media strategy. This isn’t a job to be done once — or once a month. An initial in-depth assessment will give you a good idea of where you stand and which sites you need to keep paying attention to, but after that, you’ll need to pay attention at least daily until you get a sense of how frequently new and valuable information will come across your radar.

If all of this sounds a little too overwhelming to fit into your day-to-day duties, it’s possible you’ll want to bring a social media consultant into the process — to help you get everything set up, to give you an initial assessment, to do the ongoing monitoring and tell you what it all means, or to help you identify your next steps. A good social media consultant can also advise you if you come across content that portrays your company in a negative light. The point, mostly, is that getting started doesn’t need to cost a fortune, and in fact it probably shouldn’t. These simple, free steps will help you identify and define your social media goals, and once you’ve done some initial listening, you can decide whether and how much money to start spending on talking back.

Who is going to win out of the 2008 Presidential Candidates? The Republican Presidential Candidate? The Democratic Presidential Candidate? A Libretarian Presidential Candidate?

Well if you know me, I’m not one to get into politics. Why can’t a “real” person run for President of the United States of America?

Well the thing is, YOU CAN!

WATCH THIS VIDEO:

Michael Copeland for President

So with all my friends over at PalTalk there were over 50,000 people all talking about a new presidential candidate.
So why is that person me? Perhaps it’s because of my last post stating that Social Media IS for Business. Maybe it was the video I did, making fun of marketers, “How NOT to be Social”. It could even be the blog post where I was called a Social Media Maven. Or maybe it’s something even MORE Viral!

If you want to market yourself or business, using the Social Media Landscape is an absolute must!

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has been all over the Social Media Landscape. He has distinct groups on many Social Networking Sites working towards getting supporters. Presidential Candidate John McCain is doing the same, although not as much. He’s picking up speed now though. I guess it all depends on your targeted market.

However, could a Presidential Candidate, born FROM Social Media, really make a dent in the US Presidential Election or any country for that matter? I guess we’ll see what happens. It’s an exciting time.

So would you vote for me based on my blog, or my profile on Facebook, my Tweets on Twitter, or my Chat Room on PalTalk? Would you vote for anyone that way?

From: Michael S. Copeland at http://mscopeland.com

I was talking to someone about a blog post where I was sort of tagged as a Social Media Maven. They asked me “Is Social Media for Business?”. To me, that’s like asking “Is oil for the car?”.

Then I got to thinking. I came to the conclusion that a lot of businesses do not know what social media, social marketing, social networking, and web 2.0 are. They don’t know what it can do for them and their business.

So I started to explain to him with a lot of questions and a story. I’ll try and retell it as best I can here.

Say like Bob decides to start a business in a town. It’s a bagel and lunch place. They close at 5pm M-F. In order to get people to come to the shop, he joins the Chamber of Commerce and the downtown neighborhood association. He decides to host the next Chamber get together. He gets a write up in the paper. The mayor was there. It was a good time. He’s at all the local events talking with people. Making sure to wear a Bob’s Bagels hat and shirt everywhere. He hands out cards to adults, balloons for kids. He’s doing it all right.

Now imagine that Bob makes the best Olive cream cheese people have ever tasted. He’s done surveys and people love his Everything Bagel with Olive Cream Cheese. It even won a county award. One of the things Bob does, which is unique for a bagel shop, is he gives recipes to his patrons to complement his cream cheeses. Like the Olive stuffed chicken breast, stuff like that.

Then someone asked if he had a website. He didn’t at the moment but was in the middle of creating one. His website would have order placement and drive by pickup. He even set up prepayment, shipping, and a newsletter. All of his recipes were on there.

You see, Social Media IS for business! It doesn’t matter what you’re selling. People buy from PEOPLE!

I drive 30 minutes to another Best Buy instead of the one 8 minutes from my house. Why? The people!

What Bob did was SOCIALIZE with the people in his town. He talked to them, shook their hand, and LISTENED to what they had to say. Since this was a brick and mortar business he did this all in person, whether it be him or one of his employees.

So now take that to the online world. What are you selling? Who are you selling it to? Where are they hanging out?

Don’t walk into the bar screaming “I’ve got the training course you want, get it now for 20% off!” That’s not being SOCIAL.

Join the conversation. If you happen to be able to help someone then tell them about yourself and what you can do. If you can’t help them, tell them where they can get the help! It’s being Social!!

I had a client who wanted more SEO work done and some training. I can get around with SEO but am not an expert. I was happy to steer them in the direction of some SEO Gurus.

Things like that are appreciated and will be returned 10fold. Because when that person hears someone in need of business building help or social media marketing help, I’m sure they will send them my way.

YES! Social Media is for Business. Just be REAL and get in touch with your peeps.

"If only I knew about this web app when I was flatting it would have made my life a whole lot easier. Expensure is a awesome little application that helps you (and your flatmates) keep track of all living costs and works out how much each person owes. For a more detailed description of the websites features you can take a look at the tour page. I caught up with Andrew, one of the founders and he told me a bit more about the idea and how he came up with it."

Is the social media landscape changing dramatically right now? Of course. Are blogs a decent way to make money still, even with ads? Hell yes. There's this meme going around that tech blogging fails hard. I'm not sure who to blame for this one... obviously Scoble's a likely candidate, but I think my compadre Steven Hodson in his inimitable cranky style may have got the ball rolling on this. Perhaps it's just this damned

The Blogging Gap between the Inc. 500 and the Fortune 500

This is Social Media for Dummies. You’ve seen the “Dummies” books right? Well, this video is Social Media for Dummies. It explains Social Media in Plain English.

Social Media Landscape