Asia leads the way in social media usage, with the exception of Japan...
Why widgets don't work ... and the counter-argument ...
Chris Brogan's tips for getting started in social media ...
And food for thought (thanks to Deb Schultz for flagging this up) - Grant McCracken's excellent post on 'just enough' and what it means to small scale entrepreneurs ( I can relate!)
For some time now I've been aware that I never pick up the Yellow Pages. I've never advertised my business in it and I certainly don't use it. I always search the web - and I've heard the same thing from many other people.
But I was surprised to read on Robin Hamman's CyberSoc blog that he never uses Google, or any kind of web search, preferring to ask his contacts via Twitter, Facebook and social bookmarking sites. Is this the next step? Will search ever become as defunct at the Yellow Pages? I can't imagine it happening any time soon, but then again I suppose it's possible, if the social networking phenonemon ever achieves a critical mass.
But what if your friends don't know the answer, nor where to find it? It could be the blind leading the blind. It reminds me of the idea that in the future there will be no 'mass media', that we'll all read our own 'bespoke' newspapers, full of content we've elected to receive and nothing else. Customised, personalised, targeted. Although that sounds good from a marketing standpoint, it leaves me feeling a bit depressed if that's the way all communication is going. No more serendipitous discoveries of things we previously knew nothing about, nothing to challenge our prejudices or ignorance.
Personally I think search is inherent to the web - whether it's using a search engine, searching within a site, searching for likeminds on Twitter, whatever ... we still haven't found what we're looking for.
I confess I do not read all the new posts in my Google reader everyday. That would be hundreds to get thru. Brain overload! But I've started to connect with some interesting folks on Twitter who keep me informed. It's a form of social bookmarking, but I find it a bit less mechanical and a bit more serendipitous, which I like. So the moral is, don't just blog it, tweet it.
For example here are a few things I've read recently, and who tweeted about it:
Obama spent $1 million on Google alone in February - (Richord)
I really think it's time to drop certain jargon words - take traffic, users and social for example.
More about what I mean in this week's edition of eTips ...
I just caught the tail end of 'Start the Week' yesterday on Radio 4 and heard someone saying that they couldn't imagine where people got the time to blog, tweet, polish their LinkedIn profiles etc etc - were these all people who used to spend their time watching TV? It made me feel a bit better about not blogging all day or even every day!
It turned out the guest on the show who was there to talk about the internet was Clay Shirky (great name!) so I went looking at the blog based around his new book, Here Comes Everybody. Here's what he has to say about What Businesses Need to Know about Social Media ...
I'm getting impatient... I want everyone I know to be using Twitter, because at the moment I'm a bit lost and don't really know anyone there. (Come on, peeps! Come out and play!) Here's a good explanation of what Twitter is all about, if you're sceptical:
I came across this at Logic+Emotion. Enjoy!
Is this relevant? The importance of targeting is today's eTip. The creative and the offer seem to get all the attention in email marketing - but what about timing and targeting?
Stories that have caught my eye today while researching eTips:
Can you blog away the blues? - from the Times online
Creativity vs the machine - Bill Nussey on why small companies can potentially do so well when it comes to innovation.
Some ESPs tolerate the big spammers - why? - from the Email Experience Council
Chris Brogan knows a thing or two about social media and he's just come up with a list of 20 ideas for topics to blog about. I love this kind of post, for people like me who need inspiration (aka lazy bloggers).
Thanks Chris, I may well take on something here, I liked the idea of 'Mother-Daughter' interview, but maybe interviewing a client instead, and get them talking about their perceptions of things like, well, blogs.
I am constantly amazed at how some bloggers appear to fit so much into their waking hours. It's so impossible to keep up, I find myself beating up about it, the way I used to years ago. I've exhanged one fat guilt trip for another!
In the eighties it used to be 'All these fit, toned, energetic, high powered women who are in the gym every day at 7am, at their desk by 8, sit on the board of directors, manage pelvic floor exercises while doing the supermarket shop and still manage to rustle up an immaculate coq au vin after work ... no wonder I can never lose weight/get a great job/find a man or whatever, I just don't put in the work!
And now? Well, I lost the weight, got my man and work for myself, so no problems there. But ...all these bright, hard working, well-connected people posting long lists of fantastically useful links, scanning hundreds of other blogs, commenting, digging and tweeting and online networking all day ... no wonder they're soooo popular, no wonder they get asked to speak at the coolest events and sell so many copies of their e-books - it's never gonna happen to me because I just don't put in the work!
Anyway, can't hang about. Got blogs to read, new information to absorb. Maybe I'll just have a cup of tea first.
Over the past two days there has been a great commotion in the Digging world and my word but it’s been fascinating to observe! For those people that aren’t heavily involved in the social media scene this is what’s been going down…
Yesterday Digg 'launched a new algorithm to try and prevent groups of users from gaming the system.' This sounds perfectly reasonable to me but then again I’m not a top digger...
I do understand that Digg wants to give new people a chance to get on the front page, but don’t these people who have dedicated a lot of time and effort to Digg deserve some recognition for it? It seems to have been the last straw for top Diggers who feel they are being penalised and that Digg is no longer a democratic news site. They retaliated by writing an open letter to Digg airing these and other grievances. Understandable, I think, under the circumstances!
I think the worst of it has to be the wide spread complaints about the lack of communication from Digg. Of course they deny this fervently and say that they don’t intend to ignore messages sent to them and that they hope to put in place a method of two-way communication to alleviate these complaints, blah blah… But surely this should have been in place a long time ago!? Is it just me or are these people just playing a very dangerous game?
On a site like Digg, where we can have our say at anytime, with access to a great big audience, would it not be wise for Rose and Adelson to open up the doors of communication a little more? Shouldn’t they have communicated with Digg users before it got this far? Maybe they would have saved themselves a little of the negative publicity. What do you think? I would really appreciate your comments because it just baffles me!
