It’s not that I don’t like Google Plus. On the contrary, I like the interface, I like that it’s so easy to add people to circles and post updates to only specific circles, and I like that the interface is (for now, at least) nice and clean, not cluttered with ads.

It’s just that I’m feeling saturated. I already have my routine of posting interesting news items to Twitter, posting personal updates on Facebook, uploading my weekly video interviews to YouTube, checking into FourSquare when I go out to eat or visit a new place, and blogging once a week.

The question for me has become: what place should Google Plus occupy in my life?

I guess I could simply post the same updates to a bunch of social networks, but that doesn’t make sense to me. If I’m connected with the same people on multiple networks, they would see the same posts and that’s no fun and a waste of time.

Perhaps Google Plus will become, like Twitter, another public persona for me, whereas Facebook is the network I reserve for family, friends and close network.

Sean Parker, a co-founder of original music file-sharing service Napster and a prominent Facebook shareholder, says that, “power users have gone to Twitter or to Google+.” Could this be true? In my case, my techiest of friends and co-workers seem to be more active on Google+ these days but my network is still firmly on Facebook. And yet, Google+ is grabbing subscribers fast. GooglePlusWiki says that there are now over 20M people on the network.

After pondering this issue for a while now, here’s where what I’m thinking. Although the majority of my network is still not on Google+, I need to be on it. Because no one network will dominate and it will be hard to ignore Google+. Just as I tell clients that they need to be on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr because their audiences are on these networks, I know that I need to be on all the major networks personally. I will figure out where to find the time to post to Google+. I will repeat some posts because there is some overlap in connections but it’s not 100%. I will hope that HootSuite will soon let me post to Google+ in addition to Twitter and Facebook. And I will figure out what brainspace Google+ will occupy.

How about you? Are you on Google+? What is Google+ doing to your Facebook and Twitter updates? Are you posting different things? How are you integrating Google+ into your day?

I was researching an organization last week and visited their website, blog and social media pages.

So did I decide to “follow” the organization on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook?  Absolutely not. Since I had already subscribed to the blog RSS feed, I didn’t feel compelled to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  Why add clutter to my social media streams with information I can already get elsewhere?

I know it’s tempting to set-up pages on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms and populate them with posts from your blog or press room.  We’re all busy and most communications and marketing departments are stretched thin.  But posting the same information across platforms isn’t doing your organization any good. Why?

• By posting headlines that meet the least common denominator across platforms (probably Twitter, with its 140 character limit), you miss out on functionality offered by the other platforms.  For example, Facebook lets you post longer updates, upload photos and videos, include links, host discussions, etc.
• You don’t give your target audiences a reason to follow or fan you across platforms.  Just imagine this.  If you post complementary but different content across platforms, your clients, prospects and supporters might just follow you on multiple platforms, giving your company an incredible voice with those individuals.
• If you’re posting headlines from your news room, you’re not offering people the authentic, personal voice we’ve come to expect on the social media pages.

Here’s what we do at Matrix Group:

• Our website showcases our products, services, clients, portfolio, news and webinars.
• This blog, which is authored by me, Joanna, the CEO, features my thoughts and commentary on social media, marketing, communications, strategy, customer service, trends and gadgets.  This blog DOES feature website launches at the bottom of each page.
• Our Twitter page showcases our work and clients, but the majority of the tweets are about industry news, trends, how-to articles, and case studies.  Twitter will tell you who we are and what we’re reading.  We’re pretty chatty on Twitter; we post updates multiple times a day.
• Our Facebook page also showcases our work and clients, but we also post photos and updates about happenings in the company, including trainings, parties, fun events, etc.  Facebook will tell you a lot about who we are as a company and our culture.  For example, our staff pumpkin carving contest was featured on our Facebook page.  We’re less chatty on Facebook, just updating a few times a week.
• Our Flickr page is home to our photo library of company events, while our Facebook page has the “best of” photos.
• Our YouTube channel is a work in progress and will soon feature short interviews with senior staff about their areas of expertise, including branding, the user experience, software development and security.

As you can see, our various pages are all designed to showcase our expertise, clients and work but the user experience on each platform has been carefully crafted to take advantage of that platform’s capabilities.  And while the website is clearly a marketing channel for the company, we’re not very sales-y on our social media pages, focusing instead on posting useful and interesting links.

How about you?  How are you creating an integrated use experience across your company’s social media pages?  What’s working for you?

Since joining CitizenEffect’s Gulf fact-finding mission trip last month (also called the #CitizenGulf project), it’s been a non-stop learning curve on my end, plus tough emotional processing.

The social media factor and the #CitizenGulf fact-finding trip

CitizenEffect, a nonprofit that helps anyone online be a citizen philanthropist, formed the social media team seven weeks ago to personally visit the Gulf, meet with fishing families impacted by the oil spill, and figure out ways to help them. Local nonprofits in Louisiana met with us too, clarifying perspective and the needs of parishes there. We published content (audio, video, photo essays, written commentary) via CNN’s iReports, Twitter, Posterous, Live Earth’s blog, and more. It was difficult to see such hardship up close. But what helped get beyond the heavy emotional response was a decision made by CitizenEffect after the trip:

A CitizenGulf National Day of Action on August 25th (and you)

You, your friends, and communities can be involved. What’s the goal on 8/25th? To help create a more sustainable future for Gulf fishing families by investing in education. All funds raised on the National Day of Action (less processing fees) will go to the project’s charity partner, Catholic Charities of New Orleans, who will then administer an area children’s educational program.

What’s also exciting is how organizations – online and offline – are offering their support

Social Media Club chapters across the country are organizing meetups to occur on 08/25th — which you can attend (or you can certainly form your own meetup too). In the spirit of Louisiana and many Gulf communities, we suggest that meetups include great music (stereo or live!,) like blues, jazz, or Zydeco. Gulf Coast Benefit, which had fantastic success with a national Gulf awareness and fundraising campaign in early July, is a lead supporter of the CitizenGulf project as well. Enthusiastic partnerships both offline and online in the social space have been incredible.

Would you join us to help children of Gulf fishing families? (lots of different options exist)

• In DC? You can RSVP here for the local SMC chapter event on 08/25th.
• In another city? RSVPs are open in many cities at event pages already set-up.
• Want to donate instead?
• Or you can vote for a PepsiRefresh project that will help Gulf communities.

The oil spill presented a huge challenge which I know, for one, can feel daunting when considering solutions. Thanks to you for listening, to Matrix Group for the chance to share here, and to all those helping Gulf families imagine and hope for a better life beyond the oil spill.

Jill Foster helps entrepreneurs, creatives, and community builders be distinct communicators online through social media and offline through public speech with her company Live Your Talk. She has particular expertise with women in leadership communities and works in the Washington, DC area. Jill was the founding editor of WomenGrowBusiness.com and named by ForbesWoman as one of 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. In 2009, she won the Social Citizen Award on how technology could help communities in Washington, DC.

So how do you customize your Twitter profile page to maximize followers? Here are my top tips:

• Make sure you fill out your name so it’s searchable. This sounds so simple, but consider this:  The Humane Society of the United States is @humanesociety, but the profile name is listed as HSUS.  If you use the Find People search on Twitter and type Humane Society, the HSUS page does not come up because the Twitter search only searches the Name field, NOT the username.  A better name would have been Humane Society of the US.
• Fill out the Bio and Web site fields. This is a perfect opportunity to link your Twitter page to your company Web site or blog AND provide a short elevator speech.  The bio and URL add perspective and credibility.  You can be formal, you can be clever, or you can be funny in the bio field.  Check out other bios for good ideas.  I like @pmohara and @neagle.  In addition, I hear from many, many people that if someone has not provided a bio or URL, they are much less likely to follow that person.
• Upload a thumbnail photo, image or logo. If you’re tweeting as a person, your followers can associate your tweets with a photo.  If you’re tweeting as a company, you get another opportunity to display your logo on your followers’ tweet streams.
• If you are in the Web, design, marketing, tech or social media business, then I highly recommend uploading a custom background. Otherwise, use one of the backgrounds available in the Twitter gallery to make your page stand out.  The background is another opportunity to provide information about your organizaton, list your services and passions, and have a call to action/contact information.  I love @adamplitt,   @alexslemonade, and @discover_police.

How about you?   What are some of your favorite Twitter pages?  Do you agree that you are less likely to follow someone if they don’t have the name, Web site and bio fields filled in?

Facebook says that the average user has 130 friends but I know people who have hundreds, even thousands of friends.  500 friends?  I can’t imagine many people who have that many friends with whom they would willingly share personal updates, photos, even their full birthday.  So I asked around and got some good insight into the friending and unfriending business.  These findings don’t represent a large group, just my friends! :-)

• There is a group of Facebook users who will accept friend requests from anyone and who actively try to expand their friend network.
• There is another group that views Facebook as a place where they can communicate freely so they only connect with true friends.  For these folks, Facebook is a place for personal communications, often about self, family, kids, friends.
• There was a general consensus that the new Facebook homepage, which splits updates between News Feed and View Live Feed, makes it harder to see updates from your entire network of friends, which makes it more challenging to have a large network.
• Many people have been cleaning up their lists on Facebook, Twitter, and other social network recently.  They’re actively unfriending people so they can manage the communications and flood of updates.
• Even if  a person has a large network on a platform like Facebook, they are more than likely only interacting with a small subset of friends. Indeed, the Facebook sociologist says that no matter how large their friend network, Facebook users tend to “comment on stuff from only about 5-10% of their Facebook friends.”

So just how does one end up on an unfriend list?

• If you never respond to direct messages.
• If you never update your status.
• If your relationship with a person is tenuous at best.

BTW, if you unfriend someone on Facebook, the person does not receive a notification, but they can no longer look at your profile and they can’t request to get connected again.  If you unfollow someone on Twitter, they don’t receive a notification and chances are, they won’t notice since many people have so many followers and people they are following.  It is quite another thing, however, to block someone on Twitter; if you block someone, they can’t follow you.

As for me, on Twitter, I let most people follow me on Twitter and I follow nearly 700 people back.  On Facebook, however, I only accept friend requests from people I know, people I would gladly have lunch with, and with whom I don’t mind sharing information about my son.  So while I’m connected to nearly a thousand people on Twitter, I only have 170 people in my Facebook network.

How about you?  How large is your social network on the different platforms?  What criteria do you use to assess friend requests?  Are you doing any unfriending lately?

Twitter was super smart when they created their API

API stands for Application Program Interface.  Wikipedia defines an API as “an interface that a software programs implements in order to allow other software to interact with it.”  In the Web world, APIs allow systems to talk to each other, request each other’s data, write to each other’s systems, etc., within a defined structure.  In Twitter’s case, the Twitter API allows software developers to request information from Twitter, especially the tweets by Twitter subscribers. The API allows requests by date range, keyword, usernames, etc.

Why on earth would anyone want to build a program using Twitter data?  It turns out that Twitter data can be amazingly interesting once it’s sliced and diced in different ways.  There are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of applications that take Twitter streams and do “stuff” with them: sort them, visualize them, analyze them, count them.  Here are some of my very favorite Twitter applications.  Note that I specifically don’t list applications that help you manage your tweets, replies, direct messages, etc.

• Twisst gets location information from the profiles of its followers, then tweets @ specific persons when the international space station will be in their vicinity
• TwitterCounter lets you get statistics on specific users, including Twitter rank, number of followers, etc.
• Twistori is a real-time visualization of tweets across the entire Twitter universe that mention love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish
• Twitter search lets you conduct real-times searches for keywords and phrases in everyone’s tweets
• TwitterReach lets you see how far your tweets have traveled by typing a specific keyword, phrase or hash tag; you’ll even get the total number of people your message might have reached, based on the followers of the tweeters
• TweetStats lets you enter a Twitter username to see that person’s Twitter stats, including tweets by month, day of week and time; who they most reply to and who they most retweet
• WeFollow is a user-powered directory of Twitter users, tagged by categories
• OneHourTranslation has built a business around translating tweets and sending them back to you in the language of your choice
• HappyTweets lets you enter a Twitter username and get that person’s happiness score; mine is 560 – ridiculously happy
• Twitoaster is a great way to see the threads in your Twitter conversations
• Trendistic is a great way to keep up with trends on Twitter, including trending topics

Can’t get enough of these Twitter applications?  Oneforty.com claims to be the best way to find Twitter applications.  TechCrunch has its list of the top 21 Twitter applications.  Finally, Twitdom is a database of Twitter applications.

How about you?  What are your favorite Twitter applications? What’s the coolest or prettiest thing you’ve seen that uses the Twitter API?

Twitter is deceptively simple.  You get 140 characters to speak your mind or share some news.  In some ways, Twitter is a lot like instant messaging ((IM) because people use acronyms to shorten common expressions. I found a good list of acronyms that pop up a lot of Twitter on the Examiner.com site.  My favorites?

• LOL – laughing out loud
• BTW – by the way
• IMHO – in my humble opinion
• TMI – too much information
• FTF of F2F – face to face
• LMK – let me know
• TTFN – ta ta for now

In other ways, Twitter is different from IM because it has its own protocols and etiquette. Here’s what I’ve learned:

• People on Twitter are called tweeter or twitterers
• Your Twitter account is @username; for example, I’m @jmpineda
• When you post an update on Twitter, you don’t twitter, you tweet
• When you follow people, you get their tweets in your stream or Twitter app
• People who follow you get your tweets in their stream
• You can post a public tweet but directed at a specific person(s) by including@username in your tweet; this will cause your message to show up in a person’s replies. Be sure to check your replies on a regular basis to find replies or mentions directed at you.
• A private tweet directed at a specific person is called a direct message (DM). You can only send a DM to someone if they are following you. To send a DM, click Message on the person’s profile. You can also go to Direct Messages from your profile and select a person from the dropdown; oddly, this list is random and does not contain everyone following you, so if you don’t find the person you want to DM, go to their profile or type “d + username + message”
• When you see #phrase, this is called a hashtag, which is a category or tag. Twitterers use hashtags to participate in a discussion already in progress or start a discussion. For example, every Tuesday night, I participate in the #sbbuzz discussion; anyone who wants to participate includes #sbbuzz in their tweets; we all follow the discussion using search.twitter.com and searching for the specific hashtag.
• If you see a tweet that you like and want to repost it, that’s called a retweet. It’s common courtesy to give credit to the original tweeter by using RT or via.

Here’s how to make sense of the Twitter speak:

@danr Wow, you are the first person I know to try #VIA. Thanks for the review. Where did you buy it? Which flavor?
– This is a public tweet directed @danr.  I had previously tweeted about the new instant coffee from Starbucks called VIA. I used the #VIA hashtag to make my tweet more searchable to people following tweets about VIA.

Stephen Hawking retires from Lucasian chair of mathematics: http://bit.ly/hcp4R via @akuchling
– This is a public tweet where I give credit to @kuchling for the original tweet.  I could have put RT or via @kuchling anywhere in the tweet.

@rkunboxed @ChelseaDwyer @pixelgangsta Thanks for retweeting the article about keeping women staff. So impt! http://tinyurl.com/ye8dtzt
– I had previously tweeted an article and several of my followers had retweeted the post.  This is a public tweet, directed at the three people who retweeted and providing context and the URL.

Okay, this blog post is NOT meant to be an exhaustive list of what you can do on Twitter but I hope it’s a good intro. If you want more info, the Twitter portal has a lot of great information on how to use Twitter.

How about you?  What are YOUR favorite acronyms and Twitter tips?

You can read a nice recap of the panel on the Solutions are Power blog, but here were my take-aways:

• Your customers, prospects, staff and potential staff are increasingly using social media and they expect your business to have a presence on the most popular platforms.
• We need to view social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook as vehicles for marketing, customer service, prospecting and conversation.
• But businesses should not view social networks as just another place to advertise. Social networkers (you, me and anyone with an account) are both suppliers and consumers of content. In order for businesses to thrive in the social media environment, they, too, must be suppliers and consumers of content.  In other words, companies and brands must interact with customers and prospects by engaging in a two-way dialogue.
• The vast majority of Americans’ initial interactions with companies and brands online, so we all better have a great online presence that tells our story, focuses on benefits, and talks to our customers and prospects in a natural, real way.
• When in doubt about where our prospects are and what content will interest them, all we have to do is ask.

What I loved about the panel was the diversity of our backgrounds and perspectives.  The panel consisted of:

• Jill Foster of DC Media Makers and Women Grow Business served as the moderator
• Danilo Bogdanovic of Loudoun Scene is a Realtor and social media consultant
• Terri Holly of Creative Marketing Solutions is a social media consultant and coach
• Brent Leary of CRM Essentials covered the data and CRM (customer relationship management side of the equation)
• Me, Joanna Pineda of Matrix Group International representing an interactive agency

If you were at the Grow Smart Biz conference, what did you think of the conference?  How are you integrating traditional marketing with social media?

It turns out that Twitter now offers Verified Accounts. When an account is verified by Twitter, it means they’ve been “in contact with the person or entity the account is representing” and verified that it is indeed the official Twitter account for that person.  It does not mean, however, that Twitter has verified that the person is actually writing the tweets.  Not having a verified account does not mean that the account is not the official account, either.  (Hmmm… too many NOTs in that sentence.)

So, back to Martha.  The Martha Stewart Twitter account I found has a little blue check mark in the top-right corner; this indicates that the account has been verified.  So even if Martha is not doing the actual tweeting, there’s a good chance the recipes are actually hers.

Verified Accounts are still in beta and Twitter is not recommending that everyone go out and verify their accounts. Twitter says they’re “starting with well-known accounts that have had problems with impersonation or identity confusion. (For example, well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, and public agencies).”  So if you, your boss, or someone you know is a celebrity who is dealing with impersonation problems, you can fill out a Twitter Verification Request form.   Twitter won’t promise they’ll verify your account but they do promise to put you on the list.

Be on the lookout for the little blue check and let me know if you or someone you know gets verified!

P.S.  I know the photo above is not Martha Stewart.  I wa NOT going to chance a letter from Martha’s attorney, so I cleverly found a photo that sort of looks like Martha, to further emphasize why some folks need Verified Accounts.

• Except for a few direct reports, I don’t invite staff to be my friend or get linked up. I imagine that some staff would view an invitation from me as wanting to know too much about them; at the very least, it could be awkward if they don’t want to get linked up and they have to turn down a request from their boss.
• I do accept invitations from staff to be my friend or get linked up. If they’re staff, they’re part of my extended family.
• I don’t accept an invitation to get connected unless I actually know the person. Even on LinkedIn.  Random strangers are NOT going to get access to my network just because they want to link to me.
• I do ask staff to follow this blog because I’m communicating with their clients through the blog and it’s always good for staff to know what the boss is broadcasting. :-)
• I do ask staff to follow or fan the company’s pages on the social networking platforms.  I’m not asking for them to friend me, but I am asking them to support our social networking efforts.
• I am never too casual in my updates. The updates are never too personal and I don’t use SMS speak, e.g., R U there? or Off 2 dinner.  I will use abbreviations like LOL (laughing out loud) or IMHO (in my humble opinion).
• In general, I will follow people on Twitter who follow me (as well as a lot of other people I just find interesting), unless their profile photo shows too much skin, the tweets are too racy or adult, or the account has lots followers but no tweets.
• I only post photos of me, my family, my friends, my staff and my clients where they look good.  Why would I want people I care about to look bad?  And if someone ever asks me to untag or remove a photo, I do it.
• I never, ever post a status update that I will regret later. Even if my Facebook profile is mostly private, I figure someone, somewhere has access to my posts and there will be a security breach that undoes all privacy settings.  The other accounts are all public and I assume anything I post will be part of Google’s index forever.

How about you?  What are the social networking etiquette rule that you live by?  Any lessons learned?

So how come most organizations shy away from incorporating UGC on their sites?

I think it’s because most organizations are not equipped to deal with UGC, good, bad or indifferent.  And they are deathly  afraid of negative comments.  Here’s my take on UGC, why it’s here to stay and why most organizations need a UGC strategy:

• UGC can take many forms. A magazine site that allows visitors to rate articles support UGC.  A store that allows ratings supports UGC.  A blog that welcomes comments invites UGC.
• Sites that welcome UGC invite participation. And participation by the right people encourages more participation and more followers.
• UGC lets you tap into the expertise and experiences of your members, customers, and partners, which will enrich the content you provide.
• Supporting UGC on your site or application does not mean that you lose control. You can set up guidelines and moderate comments.  On this blog, for example, all comments are immediately posted but I get notifications and I spam (delete) all comments that look spammy. Yes, I get the occasional snarky or negative comment, but unless the post contains profanity, I leave it on the site.  The New York Times recently announced that Wikipedia, the site built on UGC, will soon impose a layer of editorial review on articles about living people.
• Celebrating UGC lets you tap into most visitors’ need for true interaction with you and your organization. I read every comment on this blog and respond personally when I get a request for information or assistance.  I believe these interactions have helped Matrix Group make followers out of readers.
• If your organization is suffering from criticism re: transparency and responsiveness, UGC can help you face your critics directly. The Direct Selling Association launched a blog 18 months ago to counter false perceptions about direct selling.  Although apprehensive about allowing comments in real-time, the organization decided it needed to make a strong statement about integrity and transparency.  The results have been great.  Negative comments are opportunities to address criticisms and myths.  More importantly, the negative comments have been few and far between.
• Supporting UGC is also a wonderful way to let your staff, clients, partners and friends network and share their experiences. I was moved by the dozens of memories that members of the Matrix family posted to our 10th anniversary microsite.  I didn’t know about some of the antics and every single post was a treat!

How about you?  What’s your take on user-generated content?  What are your favorite UGC sites?  Has your organization taken the UGC plunge?

I don’t know about you, but even though I love Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, yada, yada, I still really like getting together with my college buddies, grad school buddies, fellow DC Web Women, fellow volunteers for Doorways, etc.. Yes, it’s “efficient” to get updates from friends in far away lands via their social network pages, and I have strengthened ties with folks via Twitter and FB, but will my social networks ever trump my traditional networks?

I don’t think so.

A recent article in The Economist maintains that “(o)ld-style networks… are usually stronger than online ones, , and the trust between their members facilitates transactions of all sorts.”  Transactions like doing business together, hiring staff, and lending money.

For me, however, it’s not a black and white issue.  Here’s what I think is happening:

• Family networks will probably trump all networks because “blood is thicker than water” although we all know that families are also our craziest and most dysfunctional networks.
• School, fraternity and work networks will remain the strongest because these are ties that get developed over time and involve shared efforts. So for me, my Stanford and Matrix Group networks will continue to be my strongest networks.
• Offline networks that involved shared interests will remain strong because members have a common interest. These networks, however, will be expanded to include online members.  In fact, I expect these networks to be strengthened by the ability to connect with others worldwide, in different languages.
• Increasingly, we will use our online and offline networks to make connections for work and play. For example, I may access the SAIS alumni network for a contact at the White House, but once  find a contact, I will continue to mine that person’s network through LinkedIn and Facebook.
• Across all our online networks, we will likely target a few people with whom we will establish a meaningful offline relationship. I have “met” and networked with dozens of people through Twitter but I have singled out a few for further cultivation and even a face to face meet up.
• We will rely more and more on our social networks to initiate and nurture our relationships. My school (grade school, high school, college and grad school) friends are all over the world.  Where I would have relied on phone calls, letters and emails to stay in touch in the past, I now use FB to stay connected and certainly connect with more people on a regular basis through social networks.

I actually feel that my offline networks are enhanced by the addition of online network capabilities.  And I love being able to share stories, photos and videos with family and friends in one fell swoop.

How about you?  How would you rate the strength of your traditional vs. online networks?  How are they competing or complementing each others?  Which is stronger?

So, what the heck is a Twitter visualization?  If you’re on Twitter, you know that there are millions of individual posts, replies, and discussions every day.  Figuring that people out there would want to do things with this flowing data, Twitter publishes an API (application programming interface) that lets developers have real-time access to tweets and some user information.  The result is hundreds (thousands?) of sites that let you search, map and analyze tweets, relationships between users, and topics.  Here are some of my favorite Twitter visualization sites.

• Twistori is my favorite.    Click on the words love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish and see a real-time stream of posts that contain these words in the tweet.
• WeFeelFine is a visualization of not just tweets, but blog posts and images as well.  Explore Murmurs and see a flood of tweets with the words “I feel” in them.
• Twittervision shows tweets from around the world, overlaid on a world map so you know where the tweet are coming from.  Twittervision is even available in 3D.
• Having an event?  PepsicoZeitgeist shows real-time tweets about Internet Week in New York City.  I especially love the top words from IWNY tweets.
• TweetStats lets you enter your Twitter username and see a bunch of statistics about your tweets, including when you tweet, average daily tweets, who you tend to retweet, etc..  Did you know all this about yourself?
• Twitter Friends Network Browser lets you see your Twitter network and click and drag to do fun things.
• Hashtags shows you the top hash tags on Twitter right now.
• MyTweetMap lets you see tweets from the people you are following, overlaid on a map.
• Dipity lets you explore tweets in a timeline format.

What’s fascinating to me is how Web designers and developers have found countless ways to transform the universe of Twitter data in new and different ways.  Each site introduces me to new people to follow and gives me insight on new topics.

How about you?  What are your favorite Twitter visualization sites?

The first thing I did was call my husband to see if he could deal with the dog on the roof.  The second thing I did was tweet about the dog on the roof. The third thing I did was contact a few neighbors to try and figure out who the dog might belong to.  By the time I figured out which neighbor had left his 4th floor balcony door open, Maki had coaxed the dog (his name is Kerbie) down from the roof, brought him into our house and dried him off.  Within an hour, dog and owner were reunited.  I duly tweeted the happy news to my Twitter followers.

Why does this dog on roof story matter? It matters because:

• My dog on roof story became news to my community – my staff, my neighbors and my online network.  Within minutes of tweeting about the dog on my roof, I got tons of tweets about said dog on roof.
• Kerbie’s story reached hundreds of people within minutes. Remember the plane crash in the Hudson?  Janis Krums posted the first photo of the crash on Twitter.  Within minutes and hours, the news was all over Twitter and the blogs.  By the time the 6 o’clock news covered the story, it felt like ancient news.
• I bet that if I had asked for help, I would have received a dozen offers within minutes. People would have tweeted and retweeted until I got the right resource to solve my problem.

Whether or not social networking floats your boat or makes you crazy, I believe it’s forever changed how we get our news, the speed with which we receive news, and how we filter information.

How about you?  Have any dog on roof stories to share?  What’s been your experience with this so-called transmission effect?

When I’m on vacation, I like to really unplug, which is why my husband and I go to places like Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Prague, Costa Rica. We go to places where we’re not tempted to go online and work because there is so much to see and do; often, the time difference makes it difficult to stay in touch.

In the past, I might have dropped an e-postcard or quick e-mail to the office from an Internet cafe. But these days, with wireless access everywhere and social networks broadcasting everyone’s minute by minute status, what’s a girl to do? It seems all my friends and colleagues update their status wherever they are: on a date, at the beach, at dinner, at Disneyland, out West.

If we spend our time tweeting,updating our status on Facebook and MySpace, uploading photos to Flickr, or blogging about our experiences, are we really on vacation? Will I lose followers if I leave the grid for a while? Will anyone even notice that I haven’t blogged, tweeted or updated my status in a week? I bet not.

So, even though I have been on the grid and broadcasted my whereabouts, thoughts and food adventures pretty much daily for the past year, for the next week, I will likely just vanish from the Internet.

Unless I get free wi fi from my iPod Touch of course and I can use Twitter….. Argh. Have a great holiday.

What do the iPhone, Facebook, Twitter and Google have in common?  They have great platforms

Wikipedia defines a platform as “a place to launch software. It is an agreement that the platform provider gave to the software developer that logic code will interpret consistently as long as the platform is running on top of other platforms.”

I’m convinced that Facebook zoomed past MySpace because it launched a developer platform earlier.  The developer-friendly platform lets developers create zillions of cool apps and suck more of our time, energy and loyalty.  How many quizzes have you filled out on Facebook?

The iPhone is no different.  Apple opened up its platform, hosted a user-friendly store and nine months later, iPhone users had downloaded 1 billion applications, most of them free or under $5.  My husband says he can purchase or download apps for his Blackberry but it’s not easy and the apps are on multiple sites.  No fun at all.

Twitter’s platform lets developers capture streams of data from the millions of tweets posted every day.  Born from these streams are apps that let us visualize tweets, manage tweets, search tweets, map tweets.

Finally, the Google  app engine lets developers build and host applications on the Google infrastructure. Here at Matrix Group, we created a Google Earth app that lets us visualize where network traffic is coming from and we use the Google Maps API to plot the location of association members, George Washington portraits, and more!

There are lots of other companies that host platforms, but to me, it’s been interesting to see how a company like Apple, a company NOT in the phone business, redefined the mobile phone.  The open platform movement also feels like an extension of the open source movement; both capitalize on the skills and interest of lots of dispersed developers to create a larger, more dynamic and more interesting whole.

So how did I become a cool kid?  I had been coveting the iPhone for a long time but I refuse to switch my service to AT&T.  For Mother’s Day, my husband and son got me an iPod Touch.  Yep, I spent part of Sunday downloading apps for my sleek, new Touch.  Yippee!  I’m officially a cool kid.  Don’t forget to send me your favorite iPhone apps.

• First, you need to set-up an account on Twitter.com. Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, you don’t connect your organization’s Twitter account to a personal account.  And both people and organizations have equal status on Twitter.  Not sure if you’re ready to start tweeting?  I recommend setting up an account anyway so that somebody else doesn’t grab your name.  And be sure to record the username and password on the account so that if the person in charge of tweeting for your company leaves or goes on vacation, someone else can do the tweeting.

• Next, you need to personalize your account. I recommend uploading a logo or image, and entering a short description of your organization plus your Web address.  This is critical to helping others find your company, and to encouraging others to follow you.  For example , I generally don’t follow people or organizations that don’t have a description or URL.   You can also get fancy and customize your background image.  Check out how ClearedJobs.Net customized their Twitter account with images from their Web site and job fairs.  I also like the backround image for IThinkMedia.

• Now that you’ve got your account set-up, you need to start tweeting!  If it’s your organization that’s tweeting (as opposed to an individual), I recommend developing guidelines for what and when you will tweet.  For example, a think tank might tweet about new commentary and analysis, the organization in the news, relevant news, interesting statistics, and upcoming events.  A software company might tweet about upcoming releases, an interesting customer request or inquiry, a co0l feature, company news, and power user tips.  A trade association might tweet about industry news, current research, new blog posts, key legislation, compliance tips, upcoming conferences, and market trends.  The key is to NOT just tweet the headlines from your press releases.  Your followers expect new insights, memorable quotes, key stats, cool and useful Web sites, and news of interest.  Check out how the National Park Foundation tweets about NPF activities, fun events for kids, gorgeous photos of parks, national park news.

• Okay, so you’re tweeting, how do you get followers? Like anything else, you need to promote your new Twitter account.  When Matrix Group started tweeting, we let our Facebook fans know, we announced in our e-mails, we added a link to our e-mail signatures, and we linked up from our Web site and this blog.  Another idea is to follow the thought leaders in your industry or field; chances are, others following those thought leaders will find you and follow you.  You will find that a mix of individuals, organizations and bots will start following you; look through the accounts and follow who you think will provide value back to your organization.

• Manage your tweets. When you first get started on Twitter, it’s easy to read every tweet and track your followers.  Over time, you’ll probably get overwhelmed by the volume.  I recommend using a program like Tweetdeck or Twhirl.  Personally,  I use Tweetdeck and have created groups for friends, clients, companies/organization, CEOs and thought leaders.  This way, I can still peruse the flood of tweets from the 300+ accounts I’m following, but I can also quickly zero in on the tweets from the people and orgs I care most about.

• Interact and create relationships. Your followers can interact with you in different ways.  They can send you a direct message; they can mention you in a tweet, and they can retweet your tweets (retweets usually have RT in the post).  Be sure to check your direct messages and @ tweets on a regular basis, respond to inquiries, and thank people for retweeting.  For example, when Matrix Group tweeted about a project manager opening, we got a bunch of direct messages; we responded to every single one, landed great retweets, and got some great candidates as a result.

Here’s a YouTube video from CommonCraft on setting up your Twitter account.  And here’s more great advice on getting started with Twitter from Dave Fleet and TwiTip.  Finally, the Twitter site has useful information, including how to nudge someone or get your Twitter statistics.

I could go on and on about Twitter, but I’m already up to over 750 words in this post, so I’ll stop here and ask you all: when and why did your organization get started with Twitter and what are your top tips for using Twitter effectively? Finally, if I can help you get started with Twitter, please call, e-mail or tweet.

There’s no question that we can fritter away hours reading Twitter posts, watching random videos on YouTube, updating our Facebook status, yada, yada.

But for organizations that have made the decision to incorporate social networking into their communication, conversation or marketing strategies, how can we be sure that social networking sites aren’t just a sinkhole of time?

As someone who is fairly active on different SN platforms (I tweet and update my profile on Facebook regularly, I browse sites on StumbleUpon, and I certainly watch my share of YouTube videos), here are my top time management tips:

• I set aside time during the day to read blogs, tweets, Facebook status updates, etc.  Typically, I set aside a half hour in the morning and a half hour at night.

• I may update my status on Twitter and Facebook during the day, but I don’t do a lot of reading.

• I don’t read everything.  I’m really good at skimming.

• I use Tweetdeck to manage the tweets from people I follow.  I set up groups for the people whose tweets I really want to see:  family, friends, clients, CEOs, thought leaders, research orgs. Love Tweetdeck!

• If I find something I like, I either read it right then, or I save it to my Delicious account (social bookmarking) site for later consumption.

• Do the important stuff first.  For example, I try to blog a couple of times a week.  On the day I want to blog, that is my priority, not other SN sites.

• I don’t feel compelled to reply to direct tweets and blog messages in real-time. I set aside time to read, reflect and reply; I figure nobody’s going to die because I didn’t comment fast enough on their question about Facebook URLs.

• As a company, we have developed a content strategy that delineates the type, tone and frequency of our updates and tweets.  Which means we’re clear on what we need to do, when to do it, and the content we will provide.  Finally, we don’t tweet all day long; once a day is fine.

Will you catch me doing random surfing every once in a while?  Some days, and we all have them, I just need a brain break and I want to look at pretty photos on Flickr, catch up on my favorite blogs, and scan the cool URLs and mindless tweets from people I follow.  But hey, a recent Australian study says that “people who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not.”  Imagine that.

David Allen from Business Week says that social networking is worth the time if you organization has an agenda that is supported well by social networking, you are doing research, or you need to know how social media really works.  Beth Kanter has some additional tips for using your time wisely and not getting in trouble on SN sites.

How about you?  How much time do you spend each day or week on social networking sites?  How do you manage your time?  And do you think time management is an issue for you and your staff?

I get nearly all of the photos for my blog from iStockphoto, an online photo service. There’s a good selection and pricing is great. A couple of weeks ago, I was dismayed to find that the iStockphoto Web site was completely down; all I got was a Service Unavailable message.

So what did I do?  I tweeted about the iStockphoto site being down, of course. Then I had a brainwave.  Surely other people were tweeting about the site being down; what were they experiencing and what did they know?

So I went to the Twitter search, which is a real-time search of all tweets, not just the people you follow.  I typed “istockphoto” and got a stream of tweets about the site being down.  Okay, so I knew I wasn’t alone and it wasn’t me.  But then I started seeing tweets from @istock.  Aha, perhaps I could get some answers there.  Sure enough, @istock reported that their site was under attack and they were down as a result.  I direct tweeted and got a reply back, apologizing for the downtime.

A few hours later, the iStockphoto site was back up.  I was still monitoring the tweets on the Twitter search and someone recommended changing your iStockphoto password.  I tweeted @istock and got a personal response back, agreeing that I should change my password.

Instead of customers being in the dark and a total PR nightmate, iStockphoto managed the questions and provided updates directly through Twitter. And because their posts were public, others could follow the threads and get information.  Wow.  After getting such a quick response, I wasn’t even mad that the site was down and I’m still a loyal customer.

In a related story, Katherine from Matrix Group had a suck-y customer service experience at Home Depot.  What did she do?  She blogged and tweeted about it, of course!  Well guess what, she was contacted by Home Depot directly via Twitter.  Someone from corporate then followed up by phone, apologized and offered her a $50 gift card.

Both iStockphoto and Home Depot evidently have a listening strategy related to Twitter. Chances are, they are using the Twitter search and have set up an RSS feed to alert them when their companies are mentioned in tweets.  And they are earnestly following up.

How about you?  Does your company have a listening strategy? Do you know what’s being said about you on Twitter and the blogosphere?

I can give you all kinds of reasons why I love Twitter. It’s terrific for knowing what my friends are up to, it’s a great way to promote my company and blog, but most of all, I love the crazy variety of sites and pages I learn about. My favorite tweeters are people who introduce me to new sites, interesting statistics, gorgeous photos, and news articles I would otherwise never chance upon. One of my favorite tweeters is Guy Kawasaki. Some of the recent gems I learned about from Guy are: 9 resistance-boosting foods and ingredients to help you win the cold war, 50 of the world’s best food blogs, and 10 evolution stories Darwin would love.  I suspect that Guy spends all day trolling the Web or has a vast staff that does same and then he tweets the coolest and most interesting of his finds.  Thanks, Guy!

My other love is StumbleUpon.  Here’s how it works.  You create a profile, indicate your interests, then download the StumbleUpon Web plug-in, which then adds a new toolbar to your browser.  From your  browser, you press the Stumble! button and get taken to a seemingly random site that others who share your interests have given the thumbs up.  You then have the option of giving the site the thumbs up or down, or you can do nothing.  Over time, StumbleUpon is supposed to learn what you like, based on your special interests AND the sites that you have given the thumbs up.  While having my soup at lunch yesterday, StumbleUpon took me to: the ReadPrint free online library, gorgeous black and white photos of animals from Nick Brandt, and Newsmap, which lets me access news headlines from around the world.  BTW, StumbleUpon reportedly has over 7M users and is driving an enormous amount of traffic to sites worldwide.  Be sure to check your usage reports to see if StumbleUpon is sending visitors your way.

I don’t know about you, but until recently, I felt like I was in a Web browsing rut.  I went to the same sites every day and I wasn’s straying from my normal surfing routines.  Twitter and StumbleUpon have introduced me to new sites and new perspectives.  God bless all this user-generated content!

But first, let me tell you about Chris’ speech, which was terrific.  Among the things he talked about:

• What is Google’s secret sauce? Chris says that Google has become a powerhouse because they take really talented engineers, present them with really big problems, and then give them lots of computing power to solve those problems.
• The 20% Rule. Evidently, everyone at Google can allocate 20% of their time to whatever they want, so long as: they log their actiivities in the projects database and they present their work to their peers every few weeks.  If a project is deemed worthy, the responsible staff will be given more staff time and computers.
• You only get laughed at when your ideas are too small. Google leaders Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page want all Google staff to think big and use their brains and computers to solve really big problems.
• The 150 feet rule. In addition to having over a dozen cafes on the Google campus, there are snacks every 150 feet to feed the body, feed the mind, and encourage socializing and networking.
• Search is going to get a whole lot better soon. Although the Google home page looks the same, the search technology behind it is getting better every day.  Google now tracks what we click on when we search; in the future, the search results for the same keywod may be different for you and me, based on our individual preferences and past history.
• Google Trends is not only cool, it’s surprising what we can learn from search patterns. Chris says that Google Trends can predict the box office success of a movie and where the flu will hit.

Okay, so back to stalking Chris.  I had read about FriendFeed (FF) a few months ago and decided to give it a try.  FriendFeed users can see what their friends are reading, listening to or viewing on the Web as a continuous stream of updates.  You can view the updates on a Web page, in your Google personalized page, via IM, or Facebook.  In a New York Times article, one of the founders, Bret Taylor, calls it a “blog that writes itself.”

None of my friends seem to be on FF, so I’m following just a couple of Web celebrities.  Chris Sacca provided his FF address so I started following him.  FF is like a firehose of information about the people you’re following. I follow 180 people on Twitter and love the updates and the diversity and randomness of the links posted.  I have 101 friends on Facebook and can easily scan the status updates and links.   I’m only following 3 people on FF, but every day, I get pages and pages of updates. I get tweets, blog posts, comments, links, favorite photos and videos, and comments from their friends.  I feel like I’m stalking Chris Sacca because I practically know where he is and what’s he’s reading and watching.  Do I really need this much information on one guy? Duncan Riley of TechCrunch said last year that FF is better than Twitter, but I’m overwhelmed. I think this is going to take some getting used to.

Anybody out there on FF?  How are you using it and what tools do you use to wade through the data?  Is it cool or just TMI?

1. Your Browser as the New Operating System. The Web browser is increasingly the platform for mission critical applications, like association management systems, intranets, document management systems and e-mail.
2. Conversation is King. We used to talk about creating a communications strategy.  Today, we need to create a conversation strategy because customers are interested in engagement, in two-way conversations.
3. Unified, Integrated Data. I call this the Amazon Effect.  Our customers expect us to know who they are, communicate with them in a personalized way, and give them personalized offerings.  We can’t do this unless we have a unified view of their activities and interactions.
4. Zen Tech Warrior. These warriors want information on specific topics, when they want it, on the device(s) of their choice.  Take me, for example.  I might want my magazine in print, news via e-mail, and alerts via text.  Can your database handle these preferences and can you execute on this information?
5. Green Computing. We all know that we need to do our part to reduce energy consumption and save the planet.  Data centers represent 1.5% of the electricity demand in the US.  Think green when you buy computers and peripherals.

Since my session was an Idealab, I got terrific comments and questions from my audience.  The liveliest discussion centered around creating a communications strategy because it intersects with the need to create a social networking strategy.  My top tips here?

• Monitor what is being said through Google Alerts and Twitter searches (that you can RSS).
• Create a social networking response team.
• Have a blogging strategy.  Even if your organization does not host a blog, what should you do when your organization is mentioned negatively in a blog?

Here’s a link to the handout from my session.  What about you?  What big trends are coming your way and how you are dealing with them?

I’m excited and fascinated by next week’s Inauguration.

• I’m following the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) (@obamainaugural) and loving the YouTube contest, the news about the inaugural activities, and the updates about various balls.
• I’m following the DC Government on Twitter (@Inauguration_DC) and appreciating the news about road closures, tips from the National Park Service, etc.
• I’m impressed with the Web site of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, especially the blog.    I have enjoyed reading about the rehearsal and the stand-ins, the concert at Lincoln Memorial is going to be fabulous, and the videos from Barack and Michelle Obama were a nice touch.
• The PIC’s Flickr account is full of beautiful photos of DC and the preparations for next week’s events.
• I plan to be part of the Facebook crowd watching the inauguration live and updating my status when the new President is sworn in.

For the first time ever, I feel like I’m getting an insider’s view of what goes into an inauguration and know about a lot of the activities.  The blog and photos especially are creating an intimacy to the event that I did not think possible, considering that hundreds of thousands (millions?) are going to be here next week.

However, I am more than disappointed, okay even angry, that Virginia will be virtually cut off from DC next week. With roads and bridges from Northern VA blocked, and metro sure to be in gridlock, how is someone like me supposed to participate in person next week?  I had hopes of attending a ball, but gave up after I heard that bridges would all be closed.  Come on, couldn’t the PIC have organized buses and car pools?

I guess I’ll participate in this inauguration virtually.  The few people working at Matrix Group on Tuesday will either watch the inauguration from outside City Hall in Alexandria or watch the inauguration live on CNN from our conference room.  Oh well.  At least we’ll be warm and we’ll have water and pizza, which is more than most people on the Mall will be able to say.

For those of you who are new to all this, you can “follow” people on Twitter and people can follow you. When you follow someone, their tweets are posted to your Twitter home page all day long. In my case, I’m following a random collection of friends, Web thought leaders and organizations. My friend Joe tweets his location, the books he’s reading, the articles he’s reading. The National Wildlife Federation tweets about promotions, events and issues.

The vast majority of my followers are people I know — friends, family, clients, acquaintances. But here’s the strange thing. I’ve started to get an increasing number of random followers. Twitter lets you know via e-mail when people start following you and the last six people are strangers to me.

I know that my tweets are not that interesting, no matter how hard I try. I asked my friend Cat if random people follow her and she said, “oh yeah.” Who are these people and why are they interested in my tweets? How did they even find me?

I guess this is all part of the big, social world we live in. Many of us choose to broadcast and share; evidently, there are many people out there willing to receive all this data.

I can’t think of a more fitting match between Twitter and CNN’s breaking news.  My god, Twitter is nothing but a bunch of headlines!  Today, nearly 54,000 people follow CNN’s headline news on Twitter.

The National Wildlife Federation does a great job of using Twitter to promote events, broadcast NWF news and mobilize people to do something (vote, send an e-card, donate, watch a video).  Over 1,600 people follow NWF on Twitter.

A technical support technician from Comcast uses Twitter to provide tech support.  Over 4,800 follow this guy on Twitter.  If they need help, they tweet him directly, then he tweets them directly to provide help.  Of course, you see all of his tweets on the comcastcares Twitter page.

I’ve already blogged about how the Barack Obama campaign used Twitter to mobilize support, let followers know the whereabouts of the campaign, and link to videos and speeches.  The Barack Obama Twitter feed is perhaps the most popular feed of all, with 128,000 followers.

In case you’re interested, Twitterholic has a list of some of the top Twitter feeds so you can find more people and companies to follow.

My Election Decision is aimed that the coveted undecided voters. You take a quiz and the system tells who your candidate should be.

I think the New York Times has the best election coverage of any of the major news outlets.

The Washington Post and CNN also have a good election centers.

Google has created a series of Google maps that chart the timeline of both candidates’ lives, map Twitter posts about the election, and show where the candidates are on the campaign trail. Be sure to reload this page a couple of times to see all of the possible maps.

The 270 To Win interactive electoral map lets you make your own predictions about how each state will swing.

If you are a poll junkie, you’ll love this Presidential Poll site, which aggregates polls announced by the newspapers and other media outlets.

Twitter has created an election page where anyone with a Twitter account can Tweet on the election. There is a new post every two seconds. Stay awhile and you’ll see some interesting posts.

7-Eleven lets you vote for your candidate with every coffee purchase because you get to pick your coffee cup: McCain vs. Obama. Nationally, 7-Eleven coffee drinkers are voting 58% for Obama vs. 42% for McCain. Get out there and vote and vote often!

If you want some historical perspective on the issues of the day, here’s a great PBS microsite that highlights different Presidents from the past century and their views on the economy, military service, the US role in the world, and other issues.

Just think about it.  In the past, if a dog or cat went missing, we put up flyers in the neighborhood and told all our friends.  Today, we use the Web, especially social networking sites, to tell the story, spread the word, and ask others to spread the word.  If a cause or issue takes hold, thousands of people catch wind of the story within minutes, hours, days, without the involvement of any government or news outlet.

In Jeddah’s case, WJLA reported the story, which reached the ears of Kate Bland, who asked Matrix Group to put up a Web page and Twitter account.  In between, dozens of people have e-mailed and actually joined the hunt for Jeddah at Dulles Airport and in Reston.  Today, thousands of people have heard about Jeddah.

Can the Web, e-mail and Twitter help save Jeddah?  Let’s hope so.
 

Why on earth would a presidential candidate follow every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to follow him on Twitter?  And is some poor soul on his staff really assigned to monitor the Twitter posts?

And then it hit me.  Looking at Obama’s Twitter page, you’ll note that as of midnight on July 14, 2008, there are 46,535 people following him.  It’s not about the Twitter posts, it’s about showing how many people care about what Obama is doing, about showing the huge diversity of his supporters, and allowing his supporters to get connected.

All this aside, Obama’s team does a masterful job with the Twitter posts.  While most of us post mildly amusing notes about our daily lives, in 140 characters, Obama’s posts tell you about the candidate’s campaign stops, his latest videos, how you can get involved, his family events, etc.  Recent posts include:

“Announced we are opening the DNC acceptance speech to the public. Learn how you could be chosen to go…”

“Hosting a 4th of July family picnic in Butte, MT and celebrating Malia’s 10th Birthday! Watch it live…”

BTW, I have searched in vain for John McCain in Twitter. I wanted to compare strategies and styles, but no luck.  If he’s out there, would someone please send me a link.