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Getting Overwhelmed? Get Organized!

by Kristi on February 15, 2010 · 38 comments

One of the things I have been hearing lately is that people are getting overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by following too many people on social networks or subscribing to too many blogs. And although they are inundated, they do not want to just get rid of everything and start from scratch. So how do you get what you really need and not suffer from information overload? Here are some simple ways to organize your sources of incoming information on social media, email, and blogs. I know some of these may sound like they are time intensive, but trust me, the extra time you spend setting up will be worth it for future use on these information avenues.

Twitter Lists

Twitter now allows you to add Twitter members to Twitter Lists, which helps you easily organize people you are interested in following by topic. Once you have created a few lists (or found good ones to follow on sites like Listorious, you can login to Twitter and go straight to your lists, or setup your TweetDeck, HootSuite, or other Twitter applications to show you the people you are following on those lists. This way, instead of having to spend a lot of time unfollowing people or starting up a whole new Twitter account, you can simply just see the people on your lists, bypassing the rest.

Other Twitter Cleanup Methods

  • Use Twitter Karma to take a glance at your followers all on one page. Sometimes it’s easy to spot bots over real people, or people that you don’t recognize. Since the mass unfollow no longer works, you have to open the Twitter profile in another tab / window to unfollow them.
  • Any time you realize you have seen a lot of uninteresting tweets from a particular user, take a moment to unfollow them.
  • If you’re a reciprocal auto-follower, use TweetDeck’s New Followers column to spot out bad followings from the beginning and unfollow those that don’t interest you.

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Social Networking, Bookmarking, and Sharing

by Kristi on February 8, 2010 · 23 comments

One of my commenters last week asked about the difference between social bookmarking and social networking sites. I think of social networking sites as ones where you can communicate directly with other members, where as social bookmarking sites are ones that you can add bookmarks to be shared with other members without as much direct communication.

There are sites that are definitely considered one or the other, but some sites offer both bookmarking and networking features. Here are some networks that can be used for both purposes.

Twitter

Favorite Tweets on Twitter
Favorite a Tweet on Twitter

Social Networking Features
Follow Twitter users
Status updates to all followers
Direct public messaging through @replies
Direct private messaging to users following you

Social Bookmarking Features
Save tweets in your Favorites to share with everyone

Most people think of Twitter as simply a social networking site. But one of the most popular things to share in the 140 character status updates are links to websites. If you have a lot of followers, chances are you have seen one or two tweets with links to articles that you would like to come back to later.

This is where Favorites comes into play. You can easily save tweets by clicking on the star. This will effectively bookmark the tweets in your Favorites section for later. I’m not sure if there is a limit to the number of tweets you can save in your favorites, but at the moment, I can access over a hundred favorite tweets from a year ago.

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Becoming More Accessible on Social Networks

by Kristi on February 1, 2010 · 37 comments

Everyone uses social media in their own way. While some people want to be connected with everyone, everywhere, others would rather keep certain profiles private for friends and family only. The following is for those who want to be found on social networks, or for the networks on which they want to be found.

Why You Want to Be Found on Social Networks

Think of your profile and activity on social networks as creating brand recognition. At the recent Social Media AZ event, the keynote speaker talked about how having a catalog on your coffee table increased brand awareness. Sure, that catalog may sit there for months and months, but one day when you are ready to purchase something that the company sells, that catalog will probably be in the front of your mind and lead you to hopping on the company’s website or going into their stores to do your shopping.

The same thing can be said of social media. One day, you may realize you need to brush up on your SEO, and the first resource that comes to mind is the SEO expert whose tips have been coming through your Twitter timeline. Alternatively, someone could be reminded to visit your site after seeing your name pop up in their Facebook news feed, simply thanks to your recent activity. Any reminder of your presence online could translate to a hit to your website, comment, promotion, or even a new client.

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2010 Social Media Wishlist – New Features for Facebook, StumbleUpon, & Twitter

by Kristi on December 28, 2009 · 44 comments

As I am on various social networks, I find myself thinking “Wow, I wish they had ___ which would make ___ easier.” So here are some of the changes I’d like to see on the social networks I use the most in 2010.

Facebook Wishlist
Facebook

  • Checkboxes to select all groups that you want to remove yourself from, instead of having to click “Leave Group” and wait for the page to refresh after each or having to go into each group page and leave.
  • Checkboxes to select all notifications that you would like to ignore / accept / block instead of having to do it one at a time.
  • Applications cannot leave messages on your wall without approval – period. Especially ones I didn’t sign up for. Or one setting that I can check set to approve or deny applications posting to your wall.
  • Tag photo approvals – Myspace even has an option to approve your tag in photos before it shows up on your profile / status updates.

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Facebook Applications Adding Embarrassing Content to Your Profile

by Kristi on December 13, 2009 · 33 comments

When I first started out on Facebook, I got really into some of the many fun applications, adding various ones to the Boxes tab of my profile. And after a bit, I got away from using the apps and focusing on other areas of Facebook like the groups, pages, etc.

So last night, when I decided to take a peek at my Boxes tab for the first time in awhile, you can imagine my surprise when I found a straight up porn image sent to me by one of my “friends” in an application that allows people to send you images, videos, etc.

Facebook Boxes Tab

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Fetching Friday – Resources Mashup, #FollowFriday, Facebook Humor

by Kristi on April 24, 2009 · 17 comments

This post is part of a weekly series, Fetching Friday, featuring the resources mashup, #FollowFriday recommendations, some related Twitter news, and a preview for next week’s posts on kikolani.com.

The Resources Mashup


Here are some of the best articles I have stumbledupon this week.

Blogging & Social Media
Bullet Promote your blog without spending money.
Bullet Is the new Diggbar evil?
Bullet Facebook applications for better connectivity
Bullet Comparison of Twitter search services
Bullet 10 stages of a Twitterer

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Twitter Lingo & Tips For New Twitter & Facebook Users

by Kristi on April 12, 2009 · 50 comments

Twitter, the social network which asks its members to answer the famous question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less, has a language all its own. New users may find themselves wondering what the #tags and RT’s are all about. Facebook users who do not use Twitter may wonder the same thing, since the new update has left them seeing more Twitter messages as Facebook status updates thanks to services such as Ping.fm, Selective Twitter Status, or other applications that turn Twitter updates into Facebook statuses. Here is a rundown of all the common Twitter lingo and updates you will encounter.

Twitter Lingo


Here are some of the things you may see in Twitter updates, or tweets.

@username
This is an update sent to a specific Twitter user, also called Replies (or Mentions). These updates can be sent to followers and non-followers alike. Replies to you can be viewed on your homepage in the right sidebar by clicking the @yourusername under Home.

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Fetching Friday – Web 2.0 At the Bookstore, Twitter Resources

by Kristi on March 13, 2009 · 15 comments

This week’s Fetching Friday includes Web 2.0 resources at the bookstore and lots of Twitter resources. Also, check out previews for next week and related news about recent changes to this site.

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9 Ways to Use Social Networking for Blog Promotion

by Kristi on February 23, 2009 · 96 comments

In one of my most popular posts, The Blogging Process, I compiled a list of things I do to keep kikolani.com running, including prep work for posts, social media promotion, bookmarking, interacting with readers, and other technical updates. This article focuses specifically on using social networking for blog promotion. Unless your blog is purely personal in nature and only meant to be shared with family and close friends, chances are you want to bring in more readers. Because what is the point of putting your thoughts online if you have no audience? And if your motives for blogging are fiscally driven to create a secondary source of income, or at least to cover the costs domain renewals and hosting services, then it is going to take a lot of traffic to bring in the revenue.


Read more to find out the 9 ways I use social networking to promote my blog, in order of the networks that bring in the most amount of traffic for this site.

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