SisterSledgeSays

So, I imagine Google’s Friend Connect stuff has been around awhile and I’m a Johnny-Come-Lately, but I’m betting I’m not alone…there are likely a lot of “Johnny’s” out there.

If you have a website that would benefit from social media interractions and don’t have the capability or desire to build/integrate a forum or blog, Friend Connect could be a perfect resolution to your needs. There are a variety of modules/gadgets/plugins you can choose from and more are being added by creative programmers all the time.

The gadget I was most interested to try out was the “Playlist Gadget”

You’ll see the Playlist gadget in the sidebar of this blog. With this gadget made by iLike, I can share some of my favorite music with you and besides just listening, you can add songs to the player that you’d like to share here too…so nifty! Today the songs I’ve selected are on the theme of “Pink” but I can change them any time to add/remove/edit what’s displayed. I’ve noticed that some songs only play a snippiet…haven’t figured out yet if there’s a way to know which - I’d like to only play full length songs.

One of the most popular gadgets is called a “Member’s Gadget”

The Members gadget allows visitors to:

• join your site
• sign in and out
• see pictures of other site members
• see pictures of their friends
• explore other members’ profiles
• invite other people to join your site

Many sites put this gadget on their home page. You can choose the size and colors of this gadget, to make it conform to your site.

The “Wall Gadget”

The Wall Gadget seems to have the most social engagement - it allows viewers to post comments, or links to videos on your site. I’d recommend the Wall gadget be placed within the theme of your site so that it will display on every page like I’ve done here with the Playlist gadget.

Check out Google’s Friend Connect if you’re interested - it’s free and easy to add social functionality to your site!

Here’s an example of a blog site implementing many of the Friend Connect gadgets: http://blog.go2web20.net/

Do you use Friend Connect gadgets?

Comment here to share what’s working well for you

There have been tons of blog posts and wikis written on the use of Twitter and I couldn’t hope to improve on a one of them. But, I’d like to provide a resource here for just those who’ve asked me about Twitter…what it’s good for and how to go about getting started using it. These questions usually come from my clients or coworkers hoping to use Twitter to further their eCommerce businesses, so this resource will be tailored to those needs.

I have two Twitter accounts, one just for hobbies/entertainment and one for business endeavors:

For business I tend to follow quite a few marketing/PR specialists, content writers, developers and designers…with a sprinkling of news, brands and eclectic peeps. With this group I get a lot tweets of great links and information about new happenings in website programming, free tools and pointers to kewl new sites as well as helpful resources and ideas pertaining to internet marketing of all kinds. Peeps who follow me receive my tweets along those same lines, and can provide quick answers to my questions…I might be able to help answer their questions and I can help others promote their stuff.  A few of my followers are also my clients, which means I have an additonal avenue for providing assistance and friendship to them via Twitter.

Basically, my business use of Twitter is focused to research and promotion. For your business needs, you might use Twitter in multiple ways and though one account may be dandy, you may find the need to have more than one Twitter account to provide for meeting specific business goals…such as having one account for marketing, another devoted only to customer service and one for research.

When you find someone who might be interesting to follow, read their Twitter profile to find out their location and their description and check out their site they’ve linked to get to know them better. You might read the tweets they’ve marked as favorites, see who they follow and who follows them, read some of their past tweets…these aspects will provide the basis for deciding whether you want to follow them and perhaps you’ll learn some ways that you can engage them.

Below are some links to more resources on Twitter and a list of peeps you might want to follow and learn from, after you get your account set up. When you find someone you want to follow, check out who they follow to find additional peeps in the same niche.

Twitter - http://twitter.com

Here are some examples of Twitter searches you can do, where the tweets will all be focused to your interest - grab these random tweets of helpful info and find peeps interested in your topic to follow.

“ecommerce” - http://search.twitter.com/search?q=ecommerce

“marketing” - http://search.twitter.com/search?q=marketing

Peeps that you decide to follow will automatically get a message that you’ve taken that action…they in turn will check you out to decide if they want to follow you back (some will follow you back automatically). When you follow someone, you will see their tweets on your Twitter page.

Getting started list of interesting peeps:

SisterSledge - that’s me

PawLuxury - eCommerce

SomeEcards - eCommerce

Zappos - eCommerce

GaryVee - eCommerce

PandoraRadio -marketing

BDCsharon - eCommerce

MyBabyFirst - eCommerce

Chiropractic - marketing

Comcastcares - customer service

CoWorkUtah - marketing

Popshopology  eCommerce

GoGreenTube - marketing

UtahNewsSource - marketing/PR

MattCutts - developer

NewspaperGrl - marketing/PR

Twitter does put a cap on how many new peeps you can follow in time period, so take it easy getting started…keep it below 50 for awhile and then add more in small bursts.

Here are some links for interesting and helpful resources to learn more about Twitter:

Twitter Alltop - http://twitter.alltop.com/

Top Twitter Tools - http://www.longest.com/2008/10/28/top-twitter-tools/

TwittURLy - http://twitturly.com/

Using Twitter for Customer Service - http://www.searchengineguide.com/paul-jahn/using-twitter-for-customer-service.php

Using Social Media Wisely - http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/stick-and-stones-may-break-your-bones-an.php

7 Ways to use Micro-Blogging Platforms for Traffic and Brand Exposure  - http://www.doshdosh.com/7-ways-to-use-microblogging-services-for-traffic-and-brand-exposure/

~Edited to add more links~

Twitter Benefits for Freelance Writers - http://theadventurouswriter.com/blogwriting/quipsandtipsfreelancing/139

TweetLater (tools to be more productive on Twitter) - http://www.tweetlater.com/

Why do People use Twitter? - http://wearesocial.net/blog/2009/01/why-do-people-use-twitter/

Use Twitrans to Tweet in a Variety of Languages - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/use-twitrans-to-twitter-in-a-variety-of-languages/

Twinfluence to measure your Twitter Influence - http://twinfluence.com/

Twitter To Go: How one local coffee shop used Twitter to double their clientele - http://blog.mrtweet.net/twitter-to-go-how-one-local-coffee-shop-used-twitter-to-double-his-clientele

Who is 1 peep you recommend to follow on Twitter? Who’s the 1st peep you followed?   

Please, have your say in the blog comments here

May winter treat you lightly and the stars for you shine brightly, may your homes be filled with wonder and joy all throughout the year ~Solstice Salutations~

A very interesting application recently developed, Twitter Venn, looks perfect for data mining the details of keyword combinations used on Twitter, identifying how much engagement there is for specific keyword combinations such as your longtail targets. Twitter Venn also identifies the most used terms in connection with the terms you’ve specified. I can imagine saving results from Venn searches with a screen shot in order to compare results over time (or perhaps functionality such as this will be developed by Jeff Clark or someone else later on).

Click here to try out Twitter Venn

As you may know, there are many applications that developers have created based upon the data Twitter makes available via API. If you’d like to learn more about what sorts of data streams are available and the types of applications best suited to Twitter, read more about Twitter API’s here.

Okay, after thinking about my last post and getting some feedback, I’m afraid my main points are lost within my ramblings…so here’s the short story:

KRCL has been my fav radio station since I moved to Utah…there are lotsa reasons why I felt this way:

• so many genres of music represented (too numerous to mention here)
• diversity in DJ personalities
• community supported public radio
• internet streaming
• community awareness/promotion/education
• no ads
• live studio performances
• giveaways and special promotions
• finding new music to LOVE that I’d never heard before
• feeling my radio truly was my radio because they care about my needs/wants

However, KRCL recently decided to make big changes to their DJ’s and music that changed the way I felt about them. Their decisions affected so many things:

• music is now played from an approved “list”
• daytime volunteer DJ’s have been replaced with paid staff
• music and personalities have less variety
• KRCL provided little information or ability to communicate on the changes beforehand
• KRCL hasn’t provided any community outreach afterwards nor do they bother to attend to any reputation management for the fallout

Here are additional links to more information:
KRCL
SLWeekly - 1/31/08 first notice of changes
CityWeekly blog post 1/31/08
Twitter: SisterSledge profile page
Twitter search - KRCL
The “New Safe KRCL”
follow-up article at City Weekly 11/13/08
CityWeekly utahfm.org article
Utah Free Media