Entries Tagged 'How-To' ↓

Friendfeed is one of the hottest information and networking sites on the net, yet many a sharer languishes in obscurity. Their pictures of cute kittens go uncommented. Their loving diatribes on the social lives of elk go uncommented. And to top it off, no one comments on their blog posts.

Lack of attention totally due to a lack of worthwhile content? Okay, if it’s about elk, probably so. Chances are though that it’s not the content but the copy that’s lacking.

The current focus for lots of blogs is about tuning the copy for search engines. Is your main blog focus elk, then you’ve taken measures making it easier for Google and Yahoo to find your content. Meta tags inhabit your headers, and there’s a liberal use of related keywords. But that’s the wrong strategy for Friendfeed.

Good strategy for Friendfeed is not about catching the random searcher. Friendfeed is about snagging the eyes of your followers. Beyond that, it’s still about snagging eyeballs, the eyeballs of your follower tree.

Interesting pictures is #1. - Here’s a great example

This sort of thing will net you more than a few eyeballs. Most responded to in my experience are women, bright and shiny things, and lastly anything out of the ordinary. Really want attention, include all three.

Exciting headlines are #2. - How about a recent one…

Mentioning a hot online service isn’t enough in it’s own. It’s about presentation. Strong declarations are key, e.g. Love, Hate, Sucks.

New services aren’t the only headline grabbers. Other hot ones include:

In a previous article, we covered 10 things military service taught about social networking. Since my blog, along with a couple hundred others is being spotlighted this weekend, I thought I’d roll out a follow up article for you. Feel free to enjoy, and add your thoughts in the comments.

Here’s five more things being in the Navy taught that apply to social networking …

• Show Respect - show respect to those both senior to you and newer. These folks are all along for the ride like you are. They may be your partner sooner than you think, so treat them like they are now.
• Always Be Polished - keep your best foot forward. This goes for your blog, your emails, and your social networking posts. It helps people respect and notice you. You’re easier to spot in the crowd.
• Do Follow Up Work - If someone offers for you to contact them, do it. Follow up with people in a timely and organized manner. It shows that you care. Also, if you make a commitment, keep it. If you have an issue keeping plans, let the other parties involved know immediately.
• Do Your Homework - no one wants to hear it but most of success is preparation. Plan for important events and meetings before they happen. Be prepared to execute and discuss ideas. Be ready for your time to shine.
• Be Ready - This is more than studying up on the latest gadgets and geekery. It’s about being ready to work. Be ready to bend an elbow for others when it’s their time. Coming along side others and how you do it says more about who you are than what you talk about on a hundred social networks.

Yes these seem obvious, but I’d be unable to count how often these things are violated or misrepresented by those purporting to be social media and networking experts. There isn’t a one of these that each of us who blog, network and write couldn’t improve on.

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You’ve just written a world saving blog post or book or both. It’s got to reach the world in short order. How are you going to convince your friends to talk about it to their connections and networks? Is bribery the answer? Offer them some participation prizes? We know that only provides temporary buzz.

It’s war out there. People in your network of friends and business associates are under a constant barrage of information. They’ve seen dozens of blog posts, new books, and freshly launched businesses. Chances are they are weary of it all. What’s a person to do?

Contacts need to become comrades in arms. Their energy and focus on your needs to be such that’d they are willing to help you put the war paint on. When that happens, they’ll be talking up you, your work and more without any prompting.

War paint? Yep. What I found out when working to get to SOBCon08 was more was accomplished by getting folks along side than pushing them to push others. Oh, I did my share of that, but what really worked was bringing my contacts to fight along side for me.

How to get them there is really the question? It’s partially about having something great to say, but it’s equally about sharing your story and making them a part of it.

What really sells people, especially folks like me, is getting involved in the story. What gets me talking about Apple and their products? Oh, good products for sure, but there are lots of good to great products out there. For me it’s the story. I can tell about my Mac conversion; I can talk about how excited Apple is about the users; I can’t help myself.

With my contacts, it’s hard not to share their stories when they share them with me and invite me to be involved. That’s crucial. You can’t just have a story to tell, but it’s got to be one that folks can join in on.

Cancer survivor stories might move us, but how much more moving when told by someone that you know, or someone that asks you to come along side, and lets you know how much it’s appreciated. A story where you get to be part of it.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll realize it’s not really about the book, or the blog post so much. It’s about who you are and how your contacts are part of that. The more involved you can help them to be, the more they are going to want to share on their own.

Honesty and transparency are key. If you’re going to ask folks to get involved, and give you their trust, get them to be part of and share our story, then be up front with them. Ask for their help, tell them the truth, and share the joy of your success.

Do you have cohorts willing to help you put the war paint on and face the world? Are you working on building those types of relationships? Waiting for your best seller to happen? How about getting your support team together while you wait. They are vital to your success.

Want to come along side me? Your support and encouragement is always welcome. Want me along side for you? Tell me your story and get me on board. We’ll go face the world together.

Plurk, it’s all the buzz. What have you heard? How it’s the cool new chat tool? How it’s got a neat creature? Or how Karma rules the roost? But have you heard about the chat parser?

Parser? Yes, it’s what runs over and processes the words you type in your plurk or comment. It turns your text into rich goodness, and you didn’t even know it. Let’s look at some of the obvious ones.

**this** becomes **this**

*this* becomes *this*

__this__ becomes this

Pretty nifty huh? Well there’s a few more tricks in there. The next two are nifty and less obvious.

In the chat window to create a plurk, there are several options, such as says, and wishes. There is also freestyle. The last allows you to type any text. What happens if you type says or wishes though? You get the plurk version just as if you’d selected it.

The next one is about linking someone’s name. If you want to link tojosan for example, simply putting an @ in front does the trick.

tojosan with an @ at front becomes tojosan. The @ disappears.

Did all of that overwhelm you? Well here’s a final trick for sharing URLs without having that overly long string in there. It’s another markup trick. Here we go.

URL[space](link text)

ex http://amazon.com (Amazon - The online store) becomes Amazon - The online store

ex http://plurk.com (Plurk - your life on the line) becomes Plurk - your life on the line

The key is to type out the URL then a space, followed by a (, then the link text you want, then close with a ). Go ahead, try a few. It’s easy once you see it.

As a shortcut, this also works www.plurk.com (The Plurk) becomes The Plurk.

So there you have it, a bag of Plurk goodness to play with in your chats. Go forth and chat with gusto. Come back and share your tips and tricks with the rest of us.

Happy plurking!

     Starting up a new blog is tough.  You hear me saying that, but then you look and see I’ve started more than one.  But it’s still true.  Oh yeah, you can drop out three or four posts in short order but what happens next?  The idea well runs dry.  That or you lose interest.  It’s tough.  Been there.

     Chris Garrett, pro blogger and more, shared a great idea with some of us to get through those days.  It’s a brainstorming idea focused on using a Mindmap.  Now some of you have never heard of a mind map before.  Here’s an example of a real one I’m working on.

 *

     This map, titled Flickr, demonstrates the basic idea of a mind map well.  Flickr is the main theme.  Off of that are nodes or branches.  In this case different topics of interest about Flickr. Each of those branches has its own branches as well.  These further break down a topic or area of interest.

     In the example above Groups is a specific topic about Flickr.  Under that there are several sub topics, such as recommended groups, what moderated means, and the privacy of sharing in a group.  You’ll notice that I didn’t use full sentences in the map.  The key is to provide enough information to be able to recall that topic without writing a novel.

     How does a map like this differ from an outline?  The most obvious difference is the level of detail.  Mind maps are often no deeper than the above, or perhaps having one or two deeper branches.  Also, the organization of the map is more fluid, and topics may overlap.  You can see that privacy is mentioned under How To as well as Groups.  Notice also that sets is under Privacy and How To.

     Your map is done and your ready for the next step.  This hopefully is much easier now, and that’s picking your blog post topic.  Using the mind map above  I can see several potential blog posts already.  As a matter of fact, I can picture a series of Flickr How To articles in my future.

     Seeing the ideas laid out might tempt you to write them all at once.  Here’s where another great idea from Chris comes in handy, a blogging planner.  More on that in a future post.

     What tools are you using? Mind maps? Outlines? Random post generator? Waiting on your Twitter pals for inspiration?  Share!

* JPG generated from actual mindmap at MindMeister.com