Monthly Archives: August 2011

The Future of Social

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I think a lot about social media.  The fact that it pays my bills and puts food on my plate, is only one of the many reasons why I’m always thinking about it.

The one thing, I’m always thinking about is the future of social.  Well if Twitter’s newest shortner doesn’t tell you where the future of social is headed, maybe this report on Google+ does.  Both of these stories are just a few of the indications of how social media is slowly becoming more and more, a part of the search algorithm.  Google understands this and it’s the primary reason why they invented Google+.  People like to click on shared links and good content, more than they do search results these days.

How many times, have you clicked on a link on Twitter or Facebook simply because a friend sent it to you?  You trust the friend, so you trust the source.  The search engine result pages(SERPs) want to trust your friend too and who would not?

Let’s be honest the SERPS, long ago became manipulated with terrible content.  We’re all to blame for this, but that content we shared on Twitter, can’t be bad if twenty other people tweeted it right?

If you want to know what the future of social is, just do a quick search and ask yourself why did these links appear.

Apple and the Social Media Wildfire

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It’s Sunday morning and I’m sipping my coffee.  After a long week, I’m sitting on my girlfriend’s back deck and catching up from the week that was.

As I’m surfing the Internet and catching up on the news, I ran into this article from Mashable “iPhone 5 Could be Revealed in September.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the iPhone(I have a 3GS), but is anyone else tired of all these iPhone rumors?  I know, I am…I’m tired of hearing that the iPhone is going to be bigger or smaller, have a 8MP cam or 12 MP, be 4G or 3G, I’m tired of it all.  Can we not just wait in anticipation?

I know, this rumor mill will never end though, it’s what happens when there are thousands of blogs and social media channels.  News spreads like wildfire on the Internet, and in social media in particular, and hip/catchy products such as Apple benefit from this.

This is both the Pro and Con of social media.  News does spread like wildfire, but after awhile it can be just too much.  What happens when we have nothing left to say?  Are we simply going to all post around the same funny cat video?  This argument is currently one of the issues of Google+ as the same Cat story, stays in people’s feed as people continue to up vote it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t plan on giving up my social media lifestyle for quite a while, but the constant rumor mill and content generation is the catch 22 of social media and the Internet.

Will I be buying the iPhone 5?  Probably so, but I’ll wait for the facts and that will come when Apple announces them not anyone else.

The many Faces of Me

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How many social media accounts do you have?  I’m not going to lie, I have more than I can sometimes handle.  I can often forget to update my Linkedin profile or go days without posting something to my Tumblr.  This is a problem and I’m not the only one.  There are hundreds of people like me who are on more than one social media channel and are trying to keep all of them updated, all the time.  No matter how many social media accounts you have though, you have to realize that you cannot have the same voice in all of your accounts if so WHERE IS THE VALUE for your followers.

First off, don’t connect your accounts.  It’s an easy way to get people to stop following you on one of them, or stop following you overall.  I even disconnected my Twitter from my linkedin profile after, a friend complained to me that her Linkedin feed was filled with my tweets.  Again, DO NOT CONNECT YOUR ACCOUNTS.  Unless it’s a blog post or something something from my tumblr account, that I want to share, I rarely post the same information on any of my accounts.

Let’s take a look at some of my social media accounts and how I use them.

FACEBOOK – My Facebook, just like yours, is filled with family members and old high school friends that seem to not go away, no matter how much I want them too.  On Facebook I sometimes get a tad more political and more personal.  If you want to know that side of me, follow me there.

Twitter - I love Twitter.  Being a social media junkie I’ve used Twitter to zero in on the key influencers in my field and career path.  I also use it to follow the news and stories that are important to me.  I’m often seen tweeting social media and marketing news, something I do not do on Facebook.

Linkedin - Linkedin is the place for my resume.  Connect with me on Linkedin to find out where I”m working and what I”m currently doing.

YouTube - I like editing and filming video.  It’s a small hobby, that I wish I had more time for.  Though, I don’t own a high-tec camera, I often find myself filming monologues for days or events that are important to me, using my phone or webcam.  If you want to see these events friend me on YouTube.

Tumblr - We all find cool video on the Internet.  Tumblr is my way of showcasing it to you guys in a shared fashion.  Like random funny videos that might be a tad bit inappropriate?  Follow me on Tumblr.

These are my many faces on the web.  I try to make sure that two of them aren’t the same.  Do you have multiple social media channels, if so how do you differentiate  them?