From Facebook to MySpace, Twitter to FeedBurner, social software and feeds are reshaping the world we live in and streamlining our online experience. Networking sites like Facebook and social messaging utilities like Twitter bring the human element to the foreground by enabling people to communicate and exchange information with everyone and anyone they trust. Likewise, feeds leverage the social graph by enabling instant distribution of content for publishers, while permitting consumers to easily aggregate and keep track of all their favorite websites and blogs. Join us for a lively discussion as our panel of experts debate the various dimensions of community-driven social applications and the future of how information and messages get shared. Moderator: Kevin Ryan, VP, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies & Search Engine Watch Speakers: Andy Beal, Consultant, Blogger & Author, Marketing Pilgrim LLC David Snyder, Search Specialist, JRDunn.com Neil Patel, Co-founder, ACS Brian Morrissey, Digital Editor, AdWeek
Andy Beal is up first.
Presentation - "Avoid Being a Twit on Twitter"
Taking a perspective of a marketer for this presentation.
First get your name right. Nicknames are mostly for teens. If you sign up for Twitter, use your real name to brand yourself. Important if people instantly recognize you.
If you are not ready for Twitter yet, register anyway to avoid getting your brand or name hijacked. Difficult to get it back. Do it with all social media sites.
Twitter pages can get juiced up nicely. Andy's page has a PR5. Profiles rank nicely for names.
Break the monotony by creating your own background to stand out. Pimp your profile. If nothing else, change your colors. Check out www.twitterbacks.com to download templates and customize your own background.
The basics:
Learn the commands.
@andybeal - directs a message to a specific user. Public - everyone sees it.
d andybeal - sends a direct message that is private. One on one.
#olympics - hash marks tag comments.
Favorites - doesn't use it much, but there is a star to click on to favorite the tweet.
Can delete the updates, but don't assume they will be deleted everywhere.
Definitely change the setting so that you can see replies from anyone - even if not following. Change the default. Helps connect with people.
Don't use protection! Can protect your updates with a privacy setting. Recommends not using it. Harder to promote yourself. Don't use it unless you use it for a small group or internal purposes.
Learn the "pidgin". You only get 140 characters. Reason is SMS text messages are limited to that. Learn to shorten words. If you use SMS you know LOL and BRB.
Tweet = to send a message.
Tweeple or Tweeps = friends, nicer word than "twits"
Followers = subscribers
ReTweet = when someone resends a tweet that someone else said.
Check out the Twictionary for more.
Don't follow everyone! Will be hard to keep up. Don't wan't to be labeled a spammer. Follow friends, employees, customers, press, or anyone that will bring value to network. Don't just follow everyone.
Check out tinyurl.com/twitmarketers to find a good group of marketers to find if you need a good starting point.
Twitter is a big cocktail party. It's dynamic. Keeps moving. Don't send Twitter spam to people you don't know.
Have conversations with people with large networks. Helps build up your network.
Don't always expect a reply. Might not be at your computer, or the message might fall to deaf ears. Will only be able to send private messages to people that are following you.
Start sharing valuable information like breaking news such as an earthquake, Google update. Live-tweet events and conferences.
80% social, 20% business - mix up your messages. Don't just be self promoting.
Cross promote carefully! Use www.twitterfeed.com to combine with your blog to post your blog post on Twitter.
If you get heavy with promoting your business, set up your business profile.
Tools of the trade. Don't have to use the web only. Twirl, Twitterific, desktop apps, iPhone apps, etc.
Reputation management / monitoring with Twitter. Don't get pulled into negative conversations.
http://search.twitter.com (formerly summize) , tweetbeep.com. Query your name, products, competition. Can subscribe to alerts via RSS feeds.
Go to www.tinyurl.com/SESTwitter to add Twitter tips.
Follow Andy at www.twitter.com/andybeal. Buy his book "Radically Transparent", which is the first book on reputation management.
And finally, MC Hammer is a Twitter user! If he can use it, you can!
Note: Kevin asks to be followed @KevinMRyan
Next up is Neil Patel from ACS.
Facebook is a lot more than just photos of Neil in socks. It's a place to interact with friends. Best way to explain it is try it.
Who uses it? Most people are White - 73% - 14% black - 6% Asian - 6% other.
Over 30% make over $100k annually.
43% have never attended college.
Why should you care about Facebook?
Over 90 million people on it. Can connect with others - friends, industry people. Build relationships. Great for branding. Spread a message to the masses.
Connecting with others - Neil lives in the OC. LA is really close. Wanted to connect with other SEO's. Searched for SEO's, and found groups to meet up with. Takes the online world to the offline world. Transpires into real world.
Great for birthday reminders.
Great for branding. Shows photo of him getting kissed by Chris Hooley. "Says" he didn't enjoy it ;-)
Great for uploading photos of SES and connecting with others.
Good for sharing information. On Facebook there are feeds similar to Twitter - updates. Also can use applications.
The "Facebook Effect" - one company tied their application to Facebook and it drives 100,000,000 pages views a month.
Visit Quicksprout.com for more.
Next up is Dave Snyder.
Follow him @davesnyder. He will follow you back, and reply to you.
Thanks Tamar for helping with his presentation on Friendfeed.
What is Friendfeed? A social aggregator that consolidates the updates from social networking sites. It's an RSS feed on steroids. Puts the data into one space.
What can you do with Friendfeed? Create content streams. Create imaginary friends to represent blogs, etc.
Track topics of interest. Search topics of interest from friends RSS feeds. Makes this a powerful online reputation management tool.
You can interact with your network's information. If a friend uploads a Youtube video, can see it all in the stream. Puts the social web into one place. Makes the dilemma of social media - the disconnect, go away. This allows a real time engagement with users.
Monitor your reputation. Establish a network, RSS monitoring, Mobile reputation management, social media profile for SERPs, building brand advocates.
Allows you to monitor who is monitoring you.
Third party tools - lose alot by not using them. Twirl is a great tool. More tools on the presentation slides.
Mashup video, photos, and other content into your stream, allowing instant engagement with content. Mashups are the future of the web, as we can see with Universal search.
Check out Dave's website at SearchandSocial.com or buy him a drink!
Follow Kevin @kevinmryan Follow Andy @andybeal Follow Neil @neilpatel Follow Brian @bmorrissey
Contributed by Avi Wilensky of Promediacorp. Follow me on Twitter @aviw
