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Twitter

Digg to Replace the Shout Feature… with Tweets?

by admin on May 20, 2009 · 2 comments

in Social Media

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Recent news indicates that Digg will be giving the axe to the ‘Shout’ feature, commonly used and abused by many Diggers around the world, and apparently it will be replaced by Tweets, and sharing via Facebook Connect.

digg-dialoggThis is still sort of an unknown change, not many people fully grasp the concept (especially me). I am all for change, but my gripes with it are that I don’t have ANYONE on Facebook from Social Media websites for obvious personal reasons, but promoting on Twitter has usually never been too much of a problem. Although, it isn’t always effective. Out of 260~ followers, I’d say that maybe at the most I can get 10 to Digg, and this is by also having a friend retweet.

Are you guys worried about the changes to the “share” feature of Digg?

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Is Swine Flu Really all that Bad?

by admin on April 27, 2009 · 2 comments

in WTF

You’ve heard about Swine flu via News, Social Media Sites, and of course, Twitter. It’s trending like craaaaaazy. So, what’s up with Swine Flu?

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Swine flu comes from pigs! (not).

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Remember folks, this is like SARS! (Avian Influenza). Is that still around? Loosen up, relax, and forget about it.

Check out more pig kissers [via ThisPiggy]

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6 Surefire Ways to Build Your Social Media Network

by admin on April 17, 2009 · 0 comments

in Social Media

smm-logoWhen I first joined Digg I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I made all the common newbie mistakes like mass adding friends, mass adding power diggers, and mass shouting to any of those poor souls in my friends list. I was hired do to Search Engine Optimization for a local company, right out of high school. I had heard that social media was the newschool method of getting stuff done. I’ve heard crazy stories of boatloads of traffic, which is every webmasters dream. What a fool I was!

After a brief stint of being a jerk with no ’social skills’ online, I decided to stop using Digg as a tool to submit spam. I created a new account as a sign of good faith, and added friends slowly, and surely. I got an AIM account. I activated my Google Talk account, and was prepared to serve my community.

Some things I learned along the way to achieving a brilliant social media network:

1. Do Everything in Your Power to be Contacted - People wanting to share their sites content cannot do it alone. They need anyone and everyone they can get their hands on to pass around their votes. Since sites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon rely on a voting system to propel them through to the front page (and win all the trafficks), there is a lot of sharing involved. Be available on: Google Talk, AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger. Go through Digg to get people’s instant messenger (IM) handles. Introduce yourself as a fellow digger, etc. and let them know you’re interested in helping them get their votes up. If you do this from the start, you’ll gain a reputation. Don’t come on too strong from the start, because that will kill any respect you might want to hold in the future.

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Example = TalSiach of Digg

2. Submit and Share Your Friend’s Stories - When you share stories from one of your friends websites, or one of their submissions even, you are proving that you are really there to be part of the community. You gain trust, and you might even score some sweet backlinks (there are literally hundreds of webmasters that thrive on Digg, backlinks are wicked).

3. Find a Proper Niche for Your Site - There are a TON of niche community sites like Digg, such as Tip’d (Financial) Hugg (Enviro-friendly) and many more. You’ll be able to find more people on those sites too, and it’s awesome to have a niche where you can get useful feedback on your posts.

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4. Do not Spam with the Share Button - Limit yourself. A lot of people appreciate hearing from you once, maybe twice at most per day. Reciprocate on voting on anyone you share with, because a lot of people actually do check on your activity. Which leads to my next point.

5. Be Active - Active Diggers get noticed, even if you don’t submit popular stories. A vote count is probably the thing that most people look at when they go through fans. High vote counts, high comment counts. Avoid blind digging if you can - help your friends out, but vote on things that are truly important to you. People will notice your trends, and choose to befriend you based on your likes and dislikes, because they are often similar.

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6. Use Twitter Hashtags to Find People - Use the #Digg #reddit #stumbleupon hashtags to find people that use them! They’re typically active social media folks, and they’re definitely worth a Follow.

Good luck in your conquest to build an excellent social network, I am glad that I eventually figured it out. I regulary chat with many new people, about life as well as voting on submissions!

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9 Reasons Why You Aren’t Being Followed on Twitter

by admin on April 17, 2009 · 87 comments

in Twitter

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I’ve been on Twitter for a year and a half or so, and it never ceases to amaze me how unsophisticated the majority of my new followers could be. During the course of my Twitter career, I’ve had the pleasures of following some of the greatest Social Media gurus, search engine optimization experts, and a ton of others in the web industry. Whatever community you belong to, there will always be moronic spammers that have no interest in anything except exploiting the community just to promote their garbage products.

Many new tweeters make the same mistakes, over and over again:

1. Useless Tweets - Telling me that you got up to get a glass of water at 10:45pm from txt, and then Sitting back down at your desk at 10:46 is absolutely unnecessary. Please do yourself a favor and spare us the small details of your life. Now, if on your way to get a glass of water, you happen to see a wildfire break out across the street, then by all means, Tweet about it. If your Twitter following has anyone in your local area, it could be important for them to know.

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2. Default Profile Picture - This is a dead giveaway to let everyone you follow that you are brand-new-this-very-day, a spammer, or just a moron. It takes less than 45 seconds to upload a photo of yourself, and use the Twitter profile picture cropper to make a good snapshot.

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3. Default Twitter Color Scheme - This is not as big of a deal as the profile picture, but if you want people to follow you, you better show that you are different than every other useless Tweeter out there. Use a solid color if you can’t get a good layout. Mix it up a bit!

4. Following to Followed Ratio - Ok, we know not to follow you because you are following 500 people, and only 9 following you. Oh, and your 3 updates which provide nothing substantial. Avoid it. Search for people you have something in common with at first. Converse with people using the @reply function. It’s not hard, you just have to think of the big picture.

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5. Empty Bio - When you give no indication of who you are, where you are located, or even what you are interested in, you are disadvantaging yourself from the get-go. Take the minute-and-a-half it takes to complete your small biography.

6. A Link to Your MySpace/Facebook Profile - Congratulations, you’ve indicated that you’re in a popularity contest.

7. Your Updates are Completely, and Utterly Useless - You may think that everyone on earth is dumber than a bag of rocks, with the exception of you. Sorry to say, you’re very wrong. You cannot fool us twitter/internet/social media savvy folk with your affiliate link to the Acai Berry offer that you are so desperate to promote. I garuntee you will get no leads via Twitter by just spamming.

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8. Every Tweet You Make is Loaded with Hashtags - Because you think you are oh-so-smart, you try to take advantage of Twitter’s Search function, but loading your moronic Tweets with #hashtags. It’s not only irritating to look at, but when you have more than two hashtags in a single Tweet, I am less inclined to accept you as a follower.

9. Flooding your Tweets - This is probably the most irritating thing to see. If you are using a Mac, with Twitteriffic, and Growl notifications, it’s infuriating to see a flood of your updates filling my screen. Your tweets are full of links, either to social media, or direct news sources, but CMON! Yes, it is important to share social media stuff on Twitter because it gets it promoted, but I feel like doing murder when you flood. Don’t be a flooder.

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My hopes are to help those of you that have just recently joined the Twitter community, to become better at it, and to be less annoying. This should increase your followers slowly and steadily over time. As someone that does internet marketing Victoria, I can say Twitter is a great tool to know how to use well, to get the most out of your retweets.


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