I spent some time this evening researching my Twitter usage and that of a clients.
TW Influence is a handy tool to see where you and your competitors are in the Twitter world. Using Twitters API, TwInfluence will measure your influence in the Twitter realm. The results are not based on the number of followers you have. Your influence is measured on three levels; velocity, social capital, and centralization. (Learn more here)
If you have a moment be sure to share your TW Influence results by commenting below.
This site has Four purposes ….
1) Help you promote your business online!
2) To introduce you to the services offered by Her Media.
3) To provide you with resources to help you market your business, blogging, online marketing strategies, female demographics, and affiliate programs.
4) Blog Posts by “Her Media” AKA Karrine
Internet Business Development Services:
Researching your competitors services.
Evaluation of your current service, strategic planning, and project management.
Corporate Blog Development and Social Media Planning:
You've heard it. Using Social Media to help promote your online service is a must have.
Wondering how to use Social Media in your Marketing and PR Strategies ? Your company needs a blog ? I can help.
Social Media and Internet Savvy Virtual Assistants
Your business is online and when you are ready for help with your daily tasks your Virtual Assistant should have the internet skills and Social Media knowledge you need.
What makes my service unique ?
We work for YOU on a contract basis. We are not here to sell you someone else’s idea of what will work for you. Instead we help you determine your goals, your budget, and offer tools and resources to get you to those goals. If you are looking for someone who will tell you like it is, share their knowledge of Internet business development, promotion, advertising you should contact us today.
If you are looking for a way to better manage your Twitter account and you aren’t quite ready to hire a web savvy Viritual Assistant, you may want to check out Bright Kit.
BrightKit is in beta and for a limited time you can add multiple twitter accounts.
The only features available right now are the ability to manage multiple accounts, schedule tweets for a later time, search, read your dms and @ messages. Personally, I am looking for features that move beyond what Twitter already provides.
There are some great ideas being submitted so hopefully BrightKit will take the time to develop some of their users suggestions.
This week we located a wordpress plugin that solves an ongoing concern we have had at Her Media.
‘How can I create and publish a page in WordPress without it showing up in our navigation menu?”
There is a way to do this by adjusting tags and code, however, for those of us who aren’t coders we have located a plugin to help.
We have a page that outlines the general rules of any blog contests here at Her Media which appeared in our Navigation drop down. I needed to only include the link on each of our contest posts and as you can see from the image to the left, not only do we not have an appropriate parent category but the title was also too long.
After uploading the Exclude Page Plug in and activating it, a simple small check box appeared on the lower right of the edit screen in WordPress 2.7.
It seems the Holiday’s are not the slow season for Her Media. Website inquiries for help with Corporate Blog Plans and Web Savvy Virtual Assistants has kept me busy all week leaving little time for catching up on my Google Reader list of favourite blogs.
Though my time has been limited, I have found a few great Social Media blog reads on the topic of using social media as a business or brand this week.
Yes, I have great interest in staying up to date on how corporations and small businesses are using Twitter. Mathew Ingram reviews some comments posted over at Mashable over the debate of posting as a brand (i.e @dunkindonuts) versus having an employee or executive posting using their own identity.
Given that I tweet as Her Media, I do feel the balance is in using your brand as a user ID, but clarifying who the name and face is behind the posts. You will see my Twitter profile lists my name and my photo.
David Armano’s post is great and to the point. He touches on a few of the items I feel all businesses need to understand before they jump on the twitter train; transparency, generosity, and value.
Simon Owens wrote a great post on Twitter inflation over at Media Shift some time ago. He lists 5 questions he asks himself before he follows back;
“Did the person fill out his profile? Did he upload his picture? What’s his profession and where does he live? How many followers does he have and how many is he following? How often does he post?
I wanted to highlight number one; did the person fill out his profile? This is one of my largest decision making attributes when deciding if I will follow someone. Everyday I receive notification of new followers who have not completed their profile. Not even a photo or logo. Not listing a website or blog url where I can learn more about you is another reason I won’t follow you back.
I find this frustrating over at blogger as well. Granted some bloggers need to remain anonymous for safety or other concerns. However if you blog on an industry topic as a means of networking or promotion why would you not complete your full profile ?
For those of you who know me you may see some commonality to my other most spoken rant. Full disclosure of contact information. If the internet is your business, then you need to have a face online AND be reachable. Complete your profiles. Disclose your full contact details on your website and ensure you have a contact form.
In closing, to get my twitter follow you need to have a complete profile that provides some inclination that I will gain value from following you. To keep my follow you need to post some valuable content outside of just what you ate for breakfast
This week’s featured plug in for Word Press is the Share this plug in.
Share this is tool that allows” visitors to post your site content to various social bookmarking sites, or send a link via e-mail & other communication channels (like Facebook and MySpace) to a friend.”
Here are a few of the places your visitors can ’share’ or feature your content:
* reddit
* digg
* Facebook
* MySpace
* del.icio.us
* StumbleUpon
* Technorati Read the full article
If you haven’t already registered for an open ID account you may want to, it will save you time as you manage your Social Media experience online.
“OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.” Openid.net
I have heard some buzz around the Internet about Facebook Connect this week. Is it the same as open ID ? All three (Open Id, Facebook Connect, and Google Friend Connect) allow users to interact with third party sites.
Google Friend Connect uses Open Social Facebook harnesses the power of a known interface.
I personally feel Open ID is great for blogger and social media applications. However it will be interesting to watch Google’s more easily integrated solution ( a few lines of code to insert) and Facebook Connect ( more complicated) .
Blogging Tips from Bloggers and Internet Entrepreneur Upcoming Interviews For December 2008
Teri Camp:
Mother, published author, Social Media geekess, and the creator of the TaDa mom community. Traci Camp is described as driven by others. One look at her blog and you will likely agree.
Learn how she had over 1000 people following her on Twitter in just a few days.
Susan M. Heim:
Susan is a former senior editor for the bestselling “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series and the author of five parenting books. On her blog, Susan shares her personal and professional thoughts and experiences about raising children in today’s world.
Watch for these two interviews to be posted over the Holidays.
