Get that RSS feed!

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is what most online geeks love to tap! It allows users to share content on blogs, websites and other social networks. RSS is called a ‘feed’. It helps readers access to content that is regularly updated. Many websites and blogs include the RSS icon which lets users read content.

The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the reader the feed's URI or by clicking an RSS icon in a web browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds. (Wikipedia)

The biggest advantage of RSS is that it allows users to stay informed about things that they want to. You can subscribe to RSS feeds of my fav blog and read posts and updates when something new comes up. Feed Reader and News Aggregators allow users to use RSS feeds from the sites of their choice whenever they want. Web-based feed readers like Bloglines, Google Reader are quite popular and simple to use. Find sites that allow you to syndicate content.

Viewing content gets easy and controlled. For instance, in my Google Reader I have subscribed to blogs, websites, articles, that I would love to read more about such as Mashable, Social Media Examiner, TechCrunch among others. You could also add keywords that interest you.

Go ahead, and subscribe to the RSS feeds of websites you simple love! Also, make sure to add one on your blog/website.
More at http://www.whatisrss.com/

Social Science & Social Media

An article on Social Media Today, talks about the relevance of social science and its relation with Social Media. Social Science as we know is the study of society and relationships. We are all born into a society and are constantly communicating with people around us. The need to interact and communicate is what keeps a society/community well bound.

Similarly, Social Media is all about communicating and engaging with customers across channels online. With the rise of Facebook and Twitter, networking is just a click away. Brands need to engage with customers in a way that allows people to share and exchange information. Social Media is all about gaining visibility by developing human relationships. Posting content or talking to your customers increases loyalty and helps you win new customers in the process. This creates credibility and trust.

It's important to have friends, to share knowledge and information, to network and make life a bit easier. The same applies when it comes to virtual friends. It's great to see that you got a whole lot of friends out there. (The average number of friends a person has on Facebook is 150.) It overwhelms us when we get so many friend requests, likes and comments. There is a transformation taking place; we are a whole new personality. We love talking to friends via a wall and through pokes. It keeps us going. Social Media is changing the way we maintain relationships.
What we do in life is replicated online. Take for instance, LinkedIn- the fastest growing PNS. We all want to be recognized for our work and our skills and talent. A LinkedIn recommendation is a great way to get noticed for the right reasons. Twitter allows us to share information to a whole lot of people with similar interests.

There many such examples of online activity that is closely related to 'social science'. Social Science is the way forward in Social Media.

Infographics to tell a story!

A picture speaks a thousand words and infographics do just that!
It is nothing but a graphic work that is designed to tell a story in words, pictures and graphics. Also known as Information Graphics it helps tell a story in few words.

Businesses and design professionals make use of this amazing technology to convey ideas in a simpler manner. Infographics appeal to social media marketers. With a vast amount of information to keep up with, it’s easier to reach out to social media experts through infographics which get the message in a clear and concise manner. It not only helps end users grab information but also helps social media marketers to sell what they got. As it is more appealing, users are more likely to bookmark, vote or share it online. Most social media marketers are using infographics to collect data in an image and get it across to users.

Working with design professionals for creating the best infographics is a must. It works when the information said is accurate, has less text, the image has colors that are visually appealing. Most businesses are resorting to infographics to communicate messages both internally and externally. Externally, it helps brands acquire more traffic, and saves time. It is an excellent method to showcase facts and figures.
For more on Infographics, read searchengineland
sociatic

Guide to Twitoaster

Twitoaster threads and archives all your Twitter conversations giving you statistics and ranking. Helps you improve and optimize your conversations with followers and your second followers. It helps in archiving and threading Twitter conversations, managing replies, simple mentions and retweets. Arnaud Meunier is the brain behind this successful application. Five things that make Twitoaster are – The Home page, Profile Page, Conversation Page, Search Page, and the Ranking Page.

Using the Home Page - Managing conversations, replying, tweeting, extracting links and images is a lot easier. You get to see hot users and #tags by the country in the home page. Yellow background next to the profile image means new replies since last visit.

In your Profile Page it will show you your rank and statistics by the day and hours. This is all with regard to replies. You can check your new replies and simple mentions. When it comes to following users, only those on Twitoaster will show up. If the profile name is in blue it shows that the person is using Twitoaster.

In the Conversation page – One can share, retweet, see who has started the conversation and extract the links, images from that conversation. You can reply to the right conversation or the point that you want to make.

The Search Page allows you to filter conversations by user, or titles and date. Also the experts in the conversation are highlighted in yellow. Filtering can be done in the following ways -
All Tweets (default): Whole timeline
With Replies: Only Tweets that received at least 1 reply
With Retweets: Only Tweets that received at least 1 retweet

The Rank Page shows you the ranking by category globally along with distinct users that week and a chart or graphical representation.
Also one can add Twitter conversation widget onto your blog/website and to iGoogle.
Twitoasters therefore is an useful application for brands, organizations, and people who have a large follower base and want to archive their conversations systematically.
Read more on this at twitoaster

Facebook status updates – Do they annoy you?

With Facebook reaching 500 million users worldwide, it is no wonder that its 'status updates' is the most widely used feature with 60 million status updates reported per day! This is in addition to the 700 million pieces of content shared on Facebook each day! Twitter a platform for sharing status updates and Google Buzz joining in to offer the same, it is overwhelming to see how individuals use these channels for updating what they do and think.

Looking into Facebook status updates is a task by itself. Add your friends and you’ll know how daunting it is to read these status updates. For one, it is a great way to share information about yourself and the world around you but seriously how does it matter to me whether you are going shopping alone! (Unless, we are good friends)

The best part about status updates is that you can tag people you want to send these updates to, which make the job easier, especially when updating something that is directed at a particular person or people. Also, Facebook settings allow you to customize who can share information and comment on your wall. In www.jeffbullas.com he talks about five types of Facebook updates to avoid.

It gets really annoying when your status updates show you as being a Facebook wannabe, trying to gain attention of all the Face bookers of the world or those on your list, and then there are some who live in a world of their own thinking people did miss their status updates!

But not all is chaos here, Facebook status updates go beyond what you ate, where you partied and those hate messages you direct to your ex. Using the status updates for sharing news, videos, images, content or your work is great. It shows your true personality rather than pretend to say or like something that you really don't or that which really is not you.

Check your Facebook news feeds and see what gets your attention and what annoys you. I'm sure you will figure out what's the best way to use status updates and how to really win likes and comments that are genuine.

What's buzzing?

Gmail's Google Buzz which is a take on for Twitter may not be as popular as Twitter for business purposes, but the statistics which state that it has over 9 million posts and comments make us explore Buzz better.

Well, for one it allows you to follow all your Gmail contacts. And getting real time updates from them. Google Buzz allows one to share links, images, videos, and anything that is of interest to the people you follow or to evoke interest and comments. One can reshare, like, comment on the updates too. Make sure to update your profile so that it appears on Google search results. Having an incomplete profile makes it unsuitable for Google search results.

It also lets you integrate websites such as Picasa, Flickr, Twitter, and your blogs. What you buzz will not go to Twitter but your tweets will show up on Buzz. It gives you the option of sharing updates either private or public. Most of the content published on Google Buzz is from Twitter and very less percentage of it is done manually on Google Buzz.

It is not being used the way it has to be and it is also seen that very few individuals use it regularly. Whether people would experiment with Google Buzz one cannot say, with Facebook and Twitter bringing in applications and features that are getting users hooked onto it.

Big Five of Social Media for Business

Using Social Media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs and YouTube helps increase visibility and your Google rank too. Optimizing these channels in the right way will help drive traffic to the website. Most brands and organizations use these top five social media platforms in their business and incorporate ways to gain profitability. Social Media Optimization is the need of the hour. Brands like Starbucks, Zappos, Dell... use these social media platforms to the maximum and reap various benefits.

Having a Facebook business Page is the first step to getting the most of social media. Recent reports state that more than 3.5bn pieces of content are shared each week on Facebook! There are more than 50% of the brands marketing on Facebook, as it helps build relationships and establishes credibility and trust. Having a Page that talks about your brand and selling your brand image to millions of people online is the key. Initiating discussions, polls, and making it as interactive as possible gets people coming back to your Page for more. Making it as visual as possible with images, videos, interesting contests, and give aways etc. is a great way to optimize Facebook.

Twitter, the best microblogging site is growing in leaps and bounds! Twitterers are blogging on things that matter and on every field and aspect of life. Tweeting can be done anywhere anytime thanks to various mobile and iPhone applications. News, images, videos etc can be easily shared in a short span of time. Twitter allows users to follow like-minded people and share ideas and knowledge faster than any other platform. Following the right profile and updating tweets must be looked into. Overdoing it gets very annoying, also tweets don't last long. Hence make sure to tweet at the right time using the right tool. Hashtags allow one to follow and search information in an organized way. There are various Twitter tools out there that help you follow the right profiles, schedule tweets, add images, videos etc... Do try them out and optimize Twitter for your business in the right way.

The most popular Video Sharing Site, YouTube, is another way one can optimize social media. It is the third most visited website. Most brands today have a YouTube channel that has videos that talk about their company, products, offerings, demos, interviews, events, announcements and many more. Some have third party videos that do the job of spreading the message for your brand. Having a YouTube channel lets you add friends, who comment on your videos, subscribe to your channel and this in turn increases views which are the only measuring factor for YouTube. It’s streaming two billion views per day!

The world's largest PNS – LinkedIn, is getting businesses and organizations hooked onto it. It is seen as a channel that not only gets you grab the right job and business deals, but also where professionals ask questions, participate in discussions, conduct polls and arrive at what's best for their business and career. LinkedIn now has 70 million members, with one million company profiles! Places like India are seeing a rapid growth in LinkedIn users. The integration of various LinkedIn applications such as Twitter, Slide Share, Polls, Box.net make the platform more appealing. One can have a personal profile, group profile or a company profile on LinkedIn, each having its own merits.

Lastly, it’s the good old blogs that give you the liberty to share views and opinions on just about anything under the sun. Blogs need to be optimized so that it is read by people who matter; also it ranks high in search engines... Blogs that are updated regularly have greater chances of being ranked high in search engine results. Incorporating RSS feeds is another way to increase your blog subscriptions, and followers. Having a blog that talks specifically on a nice subject is the key. Company blogs like Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have been great examples. Blogs are an excellent way to market your brand image, sell products and services, maintain and acquire customers... and many more. Blogging and then tweeting your blog post, sharing it on Facebook, MySpace is a good way to share your content, which in other words is known as Interlinking.

Get the most of these big five for your social media...

Source: www.jeffbullas.com