This is a guest post by Hugh DeBurgh from The Passionate Warrior, who has dedicated his life to the achievement of the ultimate family lifestyle.
I’m a personal development writer. So I don’t usually contribute to social media sites. But I thought it might be interesting to uncover how today’s social media technologies are making it possible for many people to live the life of their dreams right from their living room – or, in my case, from my RV.
An Unconventional Lifestyle
I’ll start by telling you a bit about my own family’s experience.
You see, we don’t live a conventional life. We don’t work at conventional jobs. We don’t drive conventional cars, you name it – we aren’t conventional. We travel when we want. We live how we want. We stop and live anywhere that the scenery suits us. Or where the neighbors are nice. And if the neighbors become annoying? We move, of course.
I have no boss. Neither does my wife.
My kids attend no schools. Yet they know more about the world and the people in it than most kids can ever dream of knowing. And they can read faster than I can (at least my 11 year old can). They are children of the world, just as their parents are. No, we are not hippies. We don’t live out of a VW bus and sell hemp products.
We enjoy the good things in life. Luxuries. Technologies. Comforts.
If you met us on the street you’d think we were ordinary people, though perhaps a bit well-to-do. We shed the heavy expensive crap that sucks up most people’s resources. We discovered that we really didn’t need it.
So, what does our unusual lifestyle have to do with social media?
Somewhere, throughout my vast array of email filters, I must have missed my invitation to try out the new Digg 4.0 beta / alpha system, but this weekend out of sheer curiosity, I logged into new Digg site and got to play around with what is coming up. So, without further ado, here is a look at the inside of the new Digg system.
Finding Friends
When you first login to the new Digg, it will suggest some profiles for you to follow under a variety of topics, including Business, Entertainment, Technology, and more.
New Digg Suggested People to FollowOn the next screen, you are invited to connect your Digg account to Facebook, Google, and Twitter to find your friends on Digg from each network.
New Digg Find Friends on Facebook, Google, and TwitterIf you decide to skip these options when first signing in, you can find popular profiles and check your networks later by going to My News > Find Profiles, and you’ll see a little section for My Networks on the left sidebar along with the topics you can search for popular profiles in.
New Digg My Networks
This is a guest post by Zack Hanebrink, an online marketing professional guest posting on behalf of Zerista, provider of services to help you build your own mobile community app for your community.
It is safe to say that social networking has gone mainstream and is here to stay. There are only 3 countries on the planet that have a higher population than Facebook has users which proves the overall popularity of social media. That being said, where is social networking heading?
Increased Usage and Popularity
According to Jake Hird’s post on 20+ mind blowing social media statistics, social media (including social networks and blogs) are the 4th most popular online activities online, which even beats personal email. 67% of global users visit member communities and 10% of all time spent on the internet is on social media sites.
Look for main-streamers to get more active in social media and branch out past Facebook to other social networking sites.
This is a guest post from Cori, is a wildly hire-able freelance ‘ghost’ as well as the creative brains and dubious brawn behind her blog Big Girl Branding.
The first half of the title of this blog post is a shining example of an oxymoron, as in: don’t be a moron.
OK, fine… that was a little mean. I’m generally pretty nice, so don’t take it personally.
Really though, using social media sites (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are what springs immediately to mind) as an extension of your “advertising media strong-arm” is one of the worst possible things you can do for your career or business.
And I say that in the nicest possible way.
Does that mean you can’t use social media to market a business? Of course not, I do it all the time. But you have to play by the rules otherwise you’ll get snubbed!
This past Monday morning, when I started my day with the usual routine checking of my TweetCaster mention alerts, I was greeted with the following tweet from @LorenBaker:
Talk about a great start to the day. In just a few hours, I had the Search and Social Awards banner in my sidebar and had sent out a tweet asking readers for support.
Since then, I have gotten a few messages from people mentioning that they were not familiar with many of the nominees. So I would like to take a moment to introduce you to some of my favorites in the nominee list, plus a sampling of some of their recent top posts.
Nominees for Best SEO Blog of 2010
Here are my favorite SEO (Search Engine Optimization) blogs out of the 22 nominees listed.
Daily SEO Tip
Daily SEO Tip is a blog that covers everything from SEO, link building, social media, blogging, and keyword tools. It is run by Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal and Ann Smarty, which many bloggers will recognize as the founder of My Blog Guest and author of many great guest blogs across the web, including on Famous Bloggers.
A Sampling from Daily SEO Tip
This is a guest post by Mike Stenger, a social media consultant with a strong passion of business and all things Internet.
Is the glass half full or half empty? It is, depending on how you look at it. When it comes to social media, there’s a lot of negative but most people prefer to cover the positive. The amazing things that can be accomplished, the amazing case studies, and the amazing results.
Sometimes though, it’s good to step back, remove all the sugar coating, and get down to business. What we can learn from the negative, we can turn into the positive. So in this post, I want to cover the top 5 social media no no’s in no particular order. What really doesn’t work, but is sadly still done by many, are the following.
#1: Link Vomiting
I know. The image that word conjures up is not too appetizing, but hear me out for a second. I’ve talked about this before – it’s really just people posting too many links. So many links that there’s nothing else really going on.
If you really want to grow your brand, it’s going to take a lot more than finding some good content to “tweet” or Facebook about.
Many businesses hear about the advantages of social media in terms of marketing their products or services, but some forget to look at other major benefits of social media beyond finding leads or making a sale. Here are eight ways that businesses can use social media to learn more about themselves and their industry as well as get more involved with their clients and communities interested in what they have to offer.
1. Monitor Conversation About Themselves
There are many free ways to monitor what people are saying about your company through social media, including the following:
Google Alerts
Google Alerts will send you a daily digest email anytime your search terms come up in blogs, news, or other websites.
Social Mention
Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc. You can have your mentions emailed to you daily.
Twitter Search
If you want to know real time what people are saying, you can setup a Twitter search in HootSuite, Tweetdeck, or just keep a RSS feed in your feed reader using Twitter search results. Include searches for your company, business owner, or unique product name.
This guest post is by Justin McGill, founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]), a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients.
Facebook has long been a thorn in the side of marketing executives who understand the necessity of creating exposure on the popular networking site but who cringe at the thought of being unable to effectively measure ROI through traditional web analytics. While Facebook itself offered an analytics service, it was extremely limited in terms of what information could be gathered, restricting data to items such as demographic and geographic statistics or post comment numbers. All that is about to change.
Webtrends recently introduced the first analytics system for Facebook that provided detailed information without operating through cumbersome image-based workarounds. With the Webtrends system, marketers can monitor custom tab interaction, link sharing, ad effectiveness and conversions, flash and custom apps. The company touted the ability to compare customer activity on Facebook and the effect those interactions were having on other venues side by side as a key aspect of their service. Quantifying customer activity on a given marketing rollout has been crucial to making the most of advertising dollars for many online businesses, and the importance of the Webtrends announcement cannot be underestimated.
