OK, this is just getting ridiculous and I waited long enough to write this post. Technology moves fast, I get it, but there’s fast, and then there’s the pace at which the world of social media has been moving over the past few months.

To be honest, it is in no one’s best interest to keep this up, not the companies behind the various platforms, not the advertisers who use these platforms to promote their brand, and most definitely not the users of these platforms.

Allow me to take a few steps back and make a disclaimer. I am fully aware that I am what’s known as an “Early adopter” and I feel the compulsive and illogical need to try every new toy. When I say toy, I don’t mean a new phone or gadget, that goes without saying. I am referring to the new type of toy, a.k.a “social app”, a.k.a “social network”.

I have not tried them all because that would literally be impossible assuming eating and performing other bodily functions are still a priority in my life. I have, however, tried every single social app/platform that has gotten even a hint of traction among the tech community. Let’s take a look at what I am talking about here.

Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, those are the no-brainers. Then we have Foursquare (should be part of the no-brainers?) Path, Instagram (Apple’s App of the year for 2011 by the way), Oink, Stamped, WhatsApp (well, it is kind of a social network if you think about it), Dapsem, Batch, Mobli, Color and Chime in.

Those are just the ones that come to my mind and by the time I finish this post, the list of social networks I have joined in the past year will have doubled in my head, but let’s leave it at these.

Mind you, when (almost) every single one of the above networks launched, it was named “The next big thing” by at least one if not all of the top tech blogs. I know, I know, just because TechCrunch says it is a hot app and the company raised $40 million does not mean I have to try it. Well, actually, ii kind of does. Put aside the fact that as a “tech enthusiast”, I don’t exactly like the thought of waking up one day to discover that everyone who is anyone is on some new network I never heard of and I am missing all the fun.

There is that other thing called work. I work in this space, the mobile, social, Web space, that is. I have to stay up to date, and besides, if we have learned anything from the tech industry in the last few years, it is that early adopters set the trends that the “normal folks” then follow. It happens nearly every time.

So many people, including myself, have asked me (I mean I ask myself this question daily), how the heck I am supposed to keep up with all these networks? I mean, the world of apps is moving just as fast but that is different. An exciting app is released, I try it, like it or don’t, then close it and either delete it or use it again in a few months time. Social networks require time, energy, thought, and dedication if you want to succeed.

The answer is, I don’t keep up. I fall behind daily. Now, I know what you’re saying to yourself (again, I am kind of a prophet.), “who cares if you fall behind? What harm does that cause you or anyone else?” Good question, I thought you’d never ask!

Well, since the basic premise of social networking (I hate that phrase more than words can describe) is relationships and engagement, I need to be able to tell someone on Twitter that their recent Instagram photo was awesome or that they need to get more sleep based on their recent Path activity. Well, I don’t need to, but that is the name of the game in this space.

So what are we going to do? Are we (and by we, I mean us psycho social media and technology junkies) doomed? Are we setting ourselves up for failure? Well, possibly, but in reality, there is a simple solution to all of this.

If you got this far in the post, then you are a loyal reader and you deserve to be rewarded as such, so here is a million dollar secret. If you create the app I am about to describe, you WILL make it big and I won’t even ask for a cut of it.

Someone needs to create the all-in-one social app. What do I mean? Well, almost every one of the networks mentioned above has an API, which means other apps can tap into its network. That is how I post pictures on Foursquare from Instagram and share a thought on Twitter from Path. On this front, Google+ is falling behind, but the full Google+ API will be out momentarily…

Why is there not one app that will enable me to upload all the content types Path supports, which includes photos, videos, text, music, location, people (tagging), and current status? Once I choose what to upload, I then decide which network to share it with! But it has to have all of them integrated.

I mean some things are relevant for my Facebook friends, and others are relevant for my Twitter followers. Some things I only want to share on Instagram, and others only on Path. When I “Oink” something (yes, that is the name of the app. I can’t make this stuff up), why not be able to share it with my Stamped community or my Linkedin connections? It just makes so much sense.

Now, it is true that many if not all of these platforms are competing with one another, but let’s say it as it is. Facebook and possibly Twitter aside, each and every one of these networks are losing more than they are gaining by not joining forces with the other networks.

Of course, the problem with such an app is that new platforms are introduced daily and to stay relevant the developer of this all in one social app would have to stay up all night every night in order to keep the app up to date. The way I see it, either this developer and his team drive themselves nuts over keeping this app up to date, or millions of people like myself and (let’s be honest, you too if you are reading this post) lose their sanity by trying to tread water in the wild waters of social media. I think we have a clear winner. So, someone please make that app pronto!

Of course the other possible solution to this social media headache is to forget it all, and actually live my life instead of tweeting about it, but c’mon, that is just crazy talk!

By: Hillel Fuld

This post is going to be a little different. Over the past three years, ever since I joined Twitter (Follow me here), I, along with many people I know, have had a lot of questions about the micro blogging service. I have tried to cover the topic from all possible angles, and when I am asked about Twitter, I generally send the person an email with a whole long list of links to posts I have written.

I decided it was time to put all that Twitter material into one place, so if someone has a question or simply does not get it, I will be able to refer them to this post.

The questions I have been asked and asked myself have been anything from “What is the point of Twitter?”, “I signed up, now what?”, “Who do I follow?”, “How do I get people to follow me?”, to “Why do I want to know what you are eating or when you go to the bathroom?” and “Why do I need Twitter if I have Facebook?”

I tried to make the titles of the posts clear and obvious enough so you know what to expect. Most of them are organized into lists, so they are easier to digest. I hope you find the information useful and of course, feel free to pass it on to anyone who does not yet get the Twitter concept.

The following is a list of Twitter articles (plus two bonus posts at the end) that should answer any question you have about the micro blogging service that has gone viral over the past few years:

The Basics

• Top 6 Ways to Benefit from Twitter
• Top 5 Reasons to Tweet
• Ten Things you Must Know before Using Twitter
• Top 5 Steps after Joining Twitter
• Five Ways Twitter Imitates Real Life
• The Greatness of Twitter
• 7 Valuable Lessons Twitter Has Taught Me About Life

Following/Followers

• Top 5 Ways To Optimize your Twitter Network
• 5 Ways To Guarantee You Won’t Get Followed Back on Twitter
• The First 99 People to Follow on Twitter
• The Next 88 People to Follow on Twitter
• Twitter: To Follow Back or not To Follow Back? How to Decide!

Advanced Tips/Updates

• A Twitter Tip that Changes Everything
• 9 Advanced Twitter Tips
• Five Myths/Misunderstandings about Social Media
• How Social Media Completely Changed Overnight

Major No-No’s

• 11 Things to Avoid When Using Twitter
• 5 Twitter Practices People Have to Stop Doing
• 6 Twitter Tips You Should Have Figured Out on Your Own
• Twitter and Social Media Mistakes that Drive Everyone Nuts
• How to Spot a Social Media Faker in Ten Seconds
• 6 Blatant Lies You Are Being Sold about Social Media

Apps

• Top 5 Twitter Apps for your Mobile Phone
• 18 Features I’d Expect to See from the Perfect iPhone Twitter App
• Four Unfortunate Ways Twitter Is Killing Tweetdeck
• Two New Tweetdeck Features that Change the Game

Other Awesomeness

• A List of Interviews with Superstars Made Possible by Twitter
• 8 Social Media Treasures We Learned from Old Spice
• Five Rules Businesses Must Follow To Succeed on Twitter
• 10 Modern Dilemmas Twitter Presents on a Daily Basis

Bonus Posts

•  Ten Steps to Maximize your LinkedIn Network
• Why You WILL End up Using Google+

I would love to hear your thoughts on some or all of the above articles. Please drop a comment below or reach out to me on Twitter with your feedback. As always, thanks for reading.

You know how when you want to go work out or for a jog, you make yourself a playlist that always has the song “The Eye of The Tiger” on it? Yea, well the below video is the “The Eye of the Tiger” of online media. This is what I watch when I need inspiration.

I am not going to go into great detail about the new way of building your brand because I could not possibly say it as well as Gary does, but let me just say one thing. To make it big in the online world, you do not need millions and you do not need a huge company name behind you. If you spend enough time branding yourself and building your reputation as an expert in whatever field you are in, your “brand equity” as Gary calls it will eventually become the big break you are waiting for.

The two things it takes to succeed are work and passion. It all starts with passion. If you are doing something in the online space (or any space for that matter), whatever it may be, because you want to make a quick buck, you will not get far. If, however, you have a small niche, but one you are passionate about, get working on it. Whether it is a few hours a day or a full time thing, keep plugging. Give it time to resonate, and eventually, you will see results and amazing ones. Remember though, you need that passion.

OK, enough lecturing, take the 15 minutes to watch this video and I promise you, you might not know it right away, but it will change your life. Forget all the mumbo jumbo about passion, don’t take my word for it. Watch this video and see what I mean. The guy is as passionate as they come!

If you know anything about SEO, you know that it’s all about relevancy. Succeeding in SEO means following the best SEO practices and increasing link popularity in order to “persuade” the search engine bots that your site is truly relevant to a given set of keywords. While a small fraction of SEO projects involve fixing the technical kinks on a site that would otherwise get rankings, most campaigns are about manipulating the bots and gaming the algorithm into associating your site with your keywords.

Now, the bots are fully capable of determining on their own which sites should come up for which keywords, so SEO work is really about working the system to make sure the bots rank your site as being most relevant. I don’t know why, but something about that rubs me the wrong way.

That’s not to say that I personally do not engage in SEO or that I think there are ethical issues involved. At the end of the day, SEO that is conducted to help legitimate businesses get better exposure to their end-users in a manner that is legal and does not hurt anyone along the way is a great thing. The real question is, how does SEO as an industry impact the web and the search engine business overall?

I believe any honest SEO expert would agree that for the most part, SEO only hurts the web and overall user experience. If sites that receive top rankings were there based on their true merits, such as natural link popularity and site relevancy to the keyword searched by the user, the search engines would provide more legitimate and reliable results (notice that I didn’t say more relevant results, as I believe results on Google are extremely relevant and helpful to users). Rather, the sites with top rankings are there because they have the largest SEO budgets and most talented SEO people. Add to this the billions of pages on web that are loaded with useless, keyword stuffed content, all the result of SEO people attempting to manipulate the Google bots into determining that a given site has “valuable content,” and the  final conclusion is that SEO is bad for users and bad for the web.

In my opinion, the problem is not that sites appearing in the search results are irrelevant, but that the playing field needs to be leveled. In a perfect world, if a mom and pop ecommerce store has high customer satisfaction, then over time the blogosphere would spread the word around and the link juice would get them Google rankings. In reality, since the big online brands have large SEO teams and budgets, they are able to purchase “link buzz” on sites like Text Link Ads and Buy Blog Reviews, making it impossible for the little guy to compete. The net result is that the little guy may have better prices and service, yet still never get the recognition he deserves. The web was supposed to help democratize the world, giving talented people and deserving companies an equal opportunity to succeed regardless of their ad budgets. But it looks like SEO is foiling this grand vision.

A great example for “manipulation” of the system can found by searching the highly competitive keyword “dating” on Google.  Aside from dating sites and dating information sources, you will find debbiedoesdating.com in the top 4 positions. This site is a dating blog with just 15 posts and a bunch of banner ads. So how does a site like this find itself ahead of actual dating sites like Match.com and dating reviews sites? Well, 60,000 inbound links should do the trick. And that’s what I found when I looked it up on Yahoo site explorer. Does anyone really believe that 60,000 webmasters found the content on this dating tips blog so valuable that they felt compelled to link to it? Obviously Google does, but I doubt anyone else buys it.

SEO is also helping to shape how sites are structured. If you Google the word “web design service” you will find two sites in the top 5 who’s design was clearly inspired by SEO and ignores their users altogether.

The first site, is essentially a link farm with dozens of internal links.

The second site, in an effort to provide lots of content for the sake of getting rankings, has placed ten articles on their homepage in gray font on a black background. This way, they get the SEO benefits of having lots of useless content without it getting in the way of having their users complete the form, because it’s nearly impossible to read. And this is coming from web design consultants. More and more, we are seeing sites that were designed to please Google rather than users. I wonder if this is what Larry Page and Sergey Brin had in mind when they set out to rank websites by quality and relevancy.

Fortunately, the social revolution can counter the “SEO effect”. While search engine results may be hit-or-miss, websites recommended by friends are much more reliable. The communities formed around review sites like Yelp are evidence of users’ increased appreciation for the opinions of others, even strangers. I know some may say that consumer review sites are not social, but trust me, users taking time to contribute their opinions simply for the sake of helping others, is very social. Further proof of this trend is Facebook’s surpassing Google in referring traffic to other sites.  Aside from being prescreened for quality, sites referred to users by their friends are naturally more consistent with the values and preferences of the users themselves.

Just to be clear, I do appreciate the professionalism of many SEO experts that have developed tremendous expertise in their field. The results these people deliver are significant and have built some of the most important properties on the web. But we cannot ignore that in the long run, many of them are hurting the web.

This is just another reason for Google to watch out for the Facebook threat. With Facebook helping provide users with validation for destination sites and getting more involved in the search game, there’s hope for people like me that fear a future in which we find ourselves drinking coffee at a Google cafe, while sitting in front of a Google laptop, paying bills online through Google bank in the United States of Google. Though Google could take immediate steps to improve the web, such as removing the company websites of all SEO agencies and SEO blogs from their index or taking their gloves off when it comes to penalizing sites with suspicious  growth and substandard user interfaces, I doubt that will ever happen. In the meantime, they need to better prepare for Facebook becoming a major obstacle in their path to world domination.

There are plenty of articles online about how to promote your business through social media, but there don’t seem to be too many on how to promote a content website with Facebook and Twitter. Of course, some of the advice is relevant to both businesses and content websites but a lot of the ideas for businesses are just not relevant for content sites. Since I focus most of my efforts these days on promoting content, I have put together a list of tips which are useful for getting as many as people as possible to a website.

1. Be Everywhere: Publicize your social media presence everywhere. That means that your e-mail signature, homepage (or even all webpages) and newsletter should contain links to your Twitter, Facebook, blog etc.
2. You Already Have Fans, Don’t You? Gain more fans or followers by harnessing your personal network. This works especially well if many of your online friends are interested in the topic of your website. Once your Facebook page or group contains a decent amount of content, send invitations to all your friends to join. You can ask friends or niche celebrities to invite their friends as well.
3. Make it Pretty: Pay attention to graphic design. It is worth investing some time and/or money in making a blog look unique and user-friendly. Even a Facebook page should look inviting. You may want to hire a developer to create a custom Facebook page using FBML. A lot of organizations have a special landing page for potential fans explaining what the website is about. On a simpler level, uploading pictures and videos to the page will help make it look more exciting.
4. Go Hollywood: Videos are extremely viral. When you post videos people are more likely to share them with their friends. You can sign up for a YouTube channel and stream the videos into your Facebook page using Involver (it’s free). Post videos on your blog and link to them via Twitter. They don’t have to be your own: if people retweet or share videos and credit you, you have gained more exposure.
5. Big Brother: Keep track of mentions. Set up a Google Alert for the name of your website and for your URL and pay attention to who is saying what about you. Twitter has a search button where you can search for recent tweets mentioning your website and Facebook has an option to “Search Posts by Everyone.” You can use your social media platforms to thank people for sharing your content and comment on blogs where you are mentioned.
6. Don’t Bug People: Don’t overwhelm your followers or fans with too much information at once. It’s a good idea to space your updates so that they don’t take over anyone’s feed. Free programs that allow you to schedule your updates in advance are CoTweet for Twitter and Sendible for Facebook. WordPress also has an option to publish later.
7. But you Can still Butt in: Ask and answer questions. Questions are more likely to elicit interaction than informative updates. Intersperse your updates with questions that relate to your content. Answering questions is a way to engage people that might not know about you. Look for questions you can answer on Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers.
8. Give them a Vote: A fun way to ask questions is by creating a poll. Facebook has a Polls application which allows you to easily create a poll and provides you with results in percentages.Announce the results of your poll to your network and send out a communal thank you to everyone who voted.
9. Pay it Forward: When other users post interesting information, retweet or repost their links and give them credit. On Facebook, if the users are your friends on your personal profile or you are a fan of their page, you can make their name a link by typing @ and waiting a few seconds before typing in their name. For Twitter, if you use a software like Tweetdeck, you can retweet with the click of a button. Of course, you don’t always want to copy the tweet word for word. Sometimes you want to add your commentary and put “via @so-and-so” at the end.
10. Tap into People’s Competitive Side: Run a contest to gain more followers and fans. Since you are not selling a product, you have to put some thought into the prize. This should be either something related to your content (such as a relevant book, ebook or DVD) or a really great prize like an ipad. Another way to promote your social media accounts is by offering a small prize to anyone who signs up (a recipe, an article or a screensaver). You could do this for your newsletter, Facebook or Twitter. If you have the budget, you can combine the two: everyone gets a freebie and one lucky winner gets the big prize.

Have you tried any of these tips? What strategies have worked for you? Please share your ideas with us.

Hadassah Levy is a website manager, focusing on promoting content websites such as Jewish Ideas Daily and The Pet Wiki. Follow her on Twitter @Hadassah_Levy and @JewishIdeas.

When discussing Twitter and social media in general, the conversation always ends with the same sentence “Social media is 90% common sense”. In regard to that, I compare the use of Twitter to SEO (Search Engine Optimization, just in case you don’t know what that is). I know there is a lot of material out there when it comes to optimizing a website for search engines, but common sense dictates that if you want people to come across your site on Google, you will use attractive keywords and titles in your article. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to insert links to other articles of yours and place them on relevant words as anchor text. Like I said, a lot of common sense.

Social media is the same deal. There is a lot to learn about the various Twitter tools, I am not denying that, but if you implement some basic principles that you use when you actually socialize (you know, like in real life?), think about the other side as a person and not a Twitter account, with a little time, you can master the art of social media. Unfortunately, most people, for whatever reason, do not do this. What they do on Twitter, they would never do face to face, and not only are these people wasting their time, they are also polluting the Twitter stream with their spam like tweets.

The following is a list of six principles that you should use when tweeting. All six of them are things the average person who has minimal social skills might have understood on their own:

1. People Have Names: I don’t know if anyone has ever written to you on Twitter and addressed you by your real name, but it is nice. It feels good and reminds you that that person actually views you as a human being and respects you as one. Like everything else in social media and in life, this should be done with moderation. I am not saying that every time you address someone on Twitter, you need to write their name,  but once in a while would be good. Give people the respect you would want them to give you both in your virtual and real life, and you are sure to see immediate results in the way people view you. If you want to learn from an expert at making people feel good on Twitter, follow Diana Adams, and watch her in action.
2. People Have Short Memories: One of the big problems on Twitter is the lack of threaded conversations. It is sometimes difficult to know what a certain tweet was a response to. There is the “In Reply To” button, but that only works with tweets, not DMs, and it only works if the tweet was a real reply and not a standalone tweet. When answering a question, unless you are answering immediately, include some sort of indication what question you are answering. Some people like to RT the question and include an answer. I personally am not a big fan for a few reasons, but mainly because that does not leave much room for the answer. Take this tweet for example, I had no idea what question he was answering,  nor did I have a way of finding out without asking him. Turned out, he was answering this question. However you do it, you should refrain from writing someone an answer to a question they asked a week ago, without reminding them of their question.
3. People Deserve Credit: If someone said/tweeted/wrote something that you liked enough to share it via a RT, credit the person. I had a long debate with a good friend, Reg Saddler on Twitter this week who does not agree with this point. He explained that he comes across thousands of articles every day and he does not have the time to find the author on Twitter. He has a point, but to be fair, he follows over 50,000 people, so for him to credit every article might be a little more difficult than for the average person. He sent me one example of an article he read to prove his point, but a quick search for the author’s name and the word “Twitter” produced the author’s Twitter account. Took me less than 5 seconds and it made someone’s day. Now, if that is not what social media is about, then I don’t know what is.
4. People Don’t Like to Be Ignored: If I had to choose one primary rule for Twitter, I would say this is it. If someone asks you something on Twitter, answer them. Yes, I know that might be difficult for you celebrities out there, but if Ashton can do it, so can you. If you are connecting with so many people that you cannot even answer everyone, what’s the point? Now before you all jump down my throat, I am not talking about answering Britney bots (if you have been on Twitter for more than 20 seconds, you know what I am talking about. If you don’t, I envy you). I am referring to normal people who might not have 3 million followers. Yes, they deserve an answer too. It might mean you have to spend a half an hour a day just answering yesterday’s questions, but this is a crucial component of “proper” social media skills. Contrary to what many heavy twitterers believe, sending out less tweets a day so you can have the time to reply to people is not such a bad idea. Want a perfect model for this? Follow Susan Cooper. It is no wonder she won Best Social Media Maven to Follow in the Mashable Open Web Awards. She just “gets it!”
5. People like Kindness: I think it is safe to say that most human beings enjoy pleasant dialogue. No one is going to unfollow you for writing “Good morning” to your followers, or asking someone specific how their day was. Yes, that means you will be sending out one tweet with no link and no information about the iPhone or any other gadget, but a “How are you” tweet might be the most important tweet of your day. It is important for many reasons, but if being a nice person is not enough for you, you can be sure that someone who never interacts with their followers personally, will not benefit from a quality Twitter network. Such a person might get high numbers for sharing good content, but the quality of the network will be lacking. Your followers will not feel like you care about them, and will therefore not care about you. It’s called “Social Media” for a reason, it is intended to be used as a platform to be social. Rule number 1 in being social? Be nice! Want an example of a person who does this to perfection? Follow Shelly Kramer!
6. People Are Watching: OK, this is a tricky one. I want to address a specific phenomenon I have seen on Twitter done by intelligent people, and I cannot for the life of me understand what they were thinking. Many people use Twitter to promote their product, and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. However, going back to what we said before, you were given a brain, use it! Make use of your common sense. What I have seen people do repeatedly is send out 20 tweets to the biggest people on Twitter (when I say biggest, I mean their numbers) trying to get them to help them promote. So, I will all of a sudden see 20 tweets by this one person saying “Hey, check out my new Twitter tool, and share it with others”. These 20 tweets will come one after another and be addressed to people like Ashton, Ellen, Shaq, and many others. A tip? They are not seeing those tweets, I am, and your other followers are, and guess what? It is annoying and spammy, so dont do it.

In conclusion, I will just say that I hope you read all the above points and said to yourself “Duh”. I hope you already knew everything I just wrote, but if you are one of the many people who did not know these points, they are important for your success on social media, they are important for the success of the online community, and mot importantly, they are crucial for your success in life. Sorry to end off with such a corny line, but it is important to always “Treat/Tweet others like you would want to be treated/tweeted”.

If you have some other Twitter tips that should be obvious but are not, or just general pieces of social media advice, please share them in the comments.

By: Hillel Fuld

This blog post started out completely differently. I woke up this morning and naturally logged into Twitter to see what news I missed while I was sleeping. I was surprised to discover what I thought was a new feature on Twitter.com, a new popup when I hover my mouse over a shortened link or a person’s name. Twitter has been working hard on implementing new Twitter features over the past few months, some more successful than others, and I thought this was just another new functionality to add to the collection.

What seems to be the direction Twitter is taking is releasing new features for the Web interface, which in the long run will help Twitter’s numbers continue to rise. Over the past few months, the statistics show that the number of people accessing Twitter is in decline. Does that mean less people are tweeting? Absolutely not! On the contrary, Twitter, for the better or the worse, is becoming more and more mainstream. The decline in numbers is primarily because more people are using 3rd party applications that access Twitter through its API, and less people are using the actual website.

This of course is something Twitter wants to control, so they are adding these new features, such as lists (Tweetdeck groups), RT Button (all the clients have it), and the latest addition being added gradually is Contributors. So, when I saw a popup when hovering over links and people’s names on Twitter, I figured Twitter added this feature to compete with clients like Tweetdeck, that display the number of followers a person has, right under every tweet.

I started writing this post about Twitter and how it is improving every day, and when I searched Twitter for people’s opinions on this new popup, it was nowhere to be found. I searched for the word popup, I searched for the word Twitter (lot of spammers on that word), and no matter what I searched for, no one was talking about this new feature. Something did not make sense here. I then remembered that I have been very busy at installing Chrome extensions, so I figured maybe it was one of my many extensions that was giving me this popup.

So the natural next move was to dig up Internet Explorer from somewhere deep in the archives of my PC, and check if this popup appears when accessing Twitter in IE. It didn’t. My first emotion was disappointment. This is a perfect idea for a Twitter feature, one that would give the Web interface a clear advantage over Twitter applications. It would enable users to see what links are behind the shortened URL, as well as view basic and important information about any Twitter user without checking out their profile. However, this was not a Twitter feature, it was a Chrome extension feature. Now all I had to do was find out which one it was, delete what I had written so far, then write a new post about the extension.

My Chrome Extensions

After a few minutes of disabling and enabling multiple extensions, it became clear to me that it was in fact the Bit.ly extension that was giving me this popup. Bit.ly is the most popular URL shortening service on the Web. URL shorteners is yet another very hot space right now with the number of available services standing somewhere close to one hundred, at least. This week, the big news was that Google and Facebook (gotta love that title. Possibly NSFW) both announced their own URL shortening services, taking this industry that did not exist, or was completely insignificant before Twitter came around, into the major leagues…

So what is a URL shortener? For those of you who do not use Twitter yet, and cannot figure it out from the name, it is a website that takes a URL, no matter how long it is, and creates a shorter one, which enables you to share that link on Twitter. Why is this important? Simply because Twitter gives you 140 characters to share the information and if you are going to use regular URLs, most of those 140 will be taken up by the link and not by the information you are trying to share. The name of the game is who can make URLs shorter? I used to use Tinyurl, till I found Bit.ly. That became outdated quickly when I encountered is.gd, which is the service I use as my default now.

The competition in this space is heating up so much that the various companies are trying their hardest to be creative in giving themselves an edge. Bit.ly enables you to track how many times the link was sent, provides analystics about your link, along with many other advanced features, which are important feature for anyone interested in the concrete results of social media. Once again, the fact that Google and Facebook are entering this space is a clear indication that this industry is here to stay.

Another “edge” that bit.ly now has over its competition is this Chrome extension. The features included in the Bit.ly extension are many. For starters, there is popup I discussed before. This is huge, and for the first time since I first opened Tweetdeck, I am now using the Web interface to read Twitter. I am sure I will still use Tweetdeck, but this definitely makes the Web interface more appealing.

However, the Bit.ly Chrome extension does so much more. When you are viewing a web page, click the extension’s icon and it opens up a sidebar that is absolutely packed with information about the site you are viewing. For starters, you can sign in to Bit.ly from the sidebar, which enables you to view your personal statistics about the sites you have shared using a Bit.ly URL. The next thing the sidebar does is automatically generates a tweet for you including the title of the page you are viewing as well as a shortened link. All you have to do is select where you want to share this. The options are Gmail, other email services, Facebook, or Twitter.

That is just the beginning. The sidebar shows you exactly how many times this page has been tweeted, posted on Facebook, or shared on Friendfeed.Amazingly enough, it also shows you the exact tweets including  the people who did the tweeting. Why is this useful? Imagine you are very interested in rocket science. You are reading an article on the Web about the topic, and you click the Bit.ly icon. You are now able to see other people who have read and shared this specific article, thereby finding people who share your interest with whom you can connect.

The extension has got to be the most feature packed Chrome add on I have encoutered yet, and I would highly recommend installing it whether you are a social media user or not. The benefits of such an extension are countless, and I for one am even willing to give up on one extra letter in my tweets so I can use Bit.ly and not is.gd.

Bit.ly has done a great job so far staying ahead of the competition, and at this rate, I am voting for them even if it means taking on industry giants like Google and Facebook. Bit.ly deserves to win this war.

Have you tried this extension yet? Do you use Bit.ly? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

One of the most common questions people have asked me about Twitter (besides of course “why do I care what you’re doing?”) is how on earth I follow so many people.  The question is a valid one since at a following list of over 4,000 people and counting, it is not humanly possible to read every tweet, every thought, or every link that people share. The basic premise of following people on Twitter is that you are at least somewhat interested in what they have to say, so the question of how I follow them all is a good one.

The answer is somewhat complex. To simplify things, I will say that the real answer is that I do not. Yes, all these people appear in my Twitter following count, but in reality, I follow only a small percentage of them. So the next question is “If you don’t really follow them, why do you follow them”? You confused yet? What that means is, if I am not really following those people or reading their tweets, why bother following them at all? The answer is etiquette. Twitter etiquette is a very interesting thing, and one that I am not going to get into here, but suffices to say that if I only followed the small number of people that I either know personally or was genuinely eager to hear what they had to say, I would not see the benefits of the diverse and amazing Twitter network I have today. Like I said, I am not going to go into detail about that here since I can write an entire blog post about that topic.

So, how do I follow 4,000 people, but really only follow 200? The answer until last week was groups. I access my Twitter on a 3rd party application called Tweetdeck. I use Tweetdeck on my home PC, my work Mac, and sometimes on my iPod Touch. One of the reasons I chose Tweetdeck over the many Twitter clients on the market, was that Tweetdeck was the first client to offer the group functionality. What I did was simple. I took all the people I knew interested me, plus all the people I communicate with regularly, and combined them into a Tweetdeck group called “Primary”. I created an additional column in Tweetdeck for my Primary group and set the program’s notifications to notify me of new tweets in that column along with my replies and DM columns. The All Friends column, in which the rest of the 4,000 people appear, became my secondary focus.

Let me clarify that if I said I never paid attention to the All Friends column, I would be lying. I read it regularly, but then we come back to our original question of how it is possible to follow 4,000 people. So, I skim that column and pay more attention to my Primary group. OK, so that was my solution until recently. A few weeks back, Twitter released a new feature called Lists, which was meant to draw people away from 3rd party applications and back to their roots of using Twitter.com. The idea was identical to the Tweetdeck groups. You would be able to create lists of users and follow those lists.

I was one of the first to get this feature, and quickly began making my lists, based on my Tweetdeck groups. However, I immediately learned that life without Tweetdeck was not so simple. To make a list, I had to add each person individually, by finding someone that interested me, opening their profile, and adding them to the list. The process took a few minutes per person, and multiplied by 200, that was time I did not have. The time was only the beginning of where Twitter lists fell short.

Other issues I had with the new list feature, was that in a totally counterintuitive way, to follow the members of a list, you need to add them one by one. Additionally, the new retweet feature that Twitter recently announced was not supported within lists. So, what good is it if I can follow the most interesting people in my network but not share their tweets with my followers? These are just a few of the list issues I had. The main one, however, was that these lists were only available on the Web, and let’s be honest, how often does the average Twitter user actually use the primitive interface offered by the Twitter.com website? The lists were not available on Tweetdeck, they were not supported by UberTwitter, which is my all time favorite mobile Twitter client (BlackBerry), and they were not supported by Echofon, my preferred iPhone Twitter app.

All that changed yesterday. I am now testing a pre released version of UberTwitter and it not only includes lists, it implements the list feature to perfection. More about the new Ubertwitter when it is released. However, as much as I loved the new Uber, that was not the big news of the night. Tweetdeck released a major update (more like a totally new application, but we will call it an update) yesterday, turning Tweetdeck into a program that pretty much covers all my social media needs. I literally do not need to ever open up Twitter.com, Facebook, or even Linkedin anymore, anything and everything (almost) I would do on those sites is now available within Tweetdeck, and most of the features are actually easier to use within Tweetdeck as opposed the site itself.

I am not going to give a full review of the new Tweetdeck now, but I will just give you a short list of the new features. They include full Linkedin integration, Go To Profile, the new retweet function in addition to the old way of retweeting, geo tagging tweets, and full list integration, which makes the whole concept of Twitter lists completely manageable.

Basically, using the new Tweetdeck, I converted my Primary group into a Twitter list called Favtweeps in just two clicks. The new list, as I mentioned will now be available to me on all platforms. I can actually use Twitter effectively on my BlackBerry now not having to follow 4,000 people. Until today, I would basically use Twitter on my phone to reply and DM people, but only rarely actually followed the stream since it was too overwhelming. Now that I have my lists on UberTwitter, the way I use Twitter will completely change.  Echofon has not added lists yet, but Twittelator Pro has, and I am sure the iPhone Tweetdeck app will be updated shortly.

Not only that, but between my multiple Twitter accounts (work and personal), my Linkedin, and my Facebook, chances are, I will be spending much more time in front of my Tweetdeck. By the way, I never created a MySpace account, but you can add that too if you have one.

In conclusion, let me just say that two of my favorite Twitter clients just got a whole lot better, and the new features are actually going to change the way users access their Twitter and various social networks. There are two problems I can see arising from these new developments. The first one is that Twitter.com’s number will continue to fall. They have been on the decline for months now, since most people do not use the Web interface, but rather depend on the API via external applications. With these applications offering everything the Web offers and a lot more (url shortening, picture, video, and audio upload services, as well as auto complete of names), I cannot think of any reason users will continue to use Twitter.com.

The other problem I foresee, and judging by the time I spent playing with the new Tweetdeck last night has already started, is that Twitter addicts all around the world will lose the battle to their addiction. Not talking about myself of course, but if a person was accessing their Twitter on Tweetdeck before, but once leaving the computer, would be available to spend time with their spouse or family, pretty sure people are going to be spending a lot more time on Twitter now with all these new features supported by the various clients. Suggestion? The next version of Tweetdeck should include a cap on the amount of time users can spend on Twitter daily.

Either that, or get ready to start seeing a lot of new T.A.A (Twitterholics Anonymous Association) centers forming across the globe.

So, do you share my enthusiasm about the new Twitter features? Please let me know in the comments!

The problem is that you hear the words social media on every tv show, movie, and talk show, which causes people to join, but where can these people learn how to use this tool? While a lot of it is common sense to some, apparently, others find it challenging to get their message across and actually keep people interested.

I recently read an article written by a friend, Ayelet Noff, entitled “The Top Five Misconceptions about Social Media” and it got me thinking about my experiences. Here is a list of five common myths and misunderstandings about social media that I have encountered:

1: What You Are Doing: This is something I say to anyone and everyone who will listen. I have said it in numerous blog posts, but apparently, I cannot say it enough because many people still have not internalized it. While Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn might ask you “What Are You Doing”? or something similar, the purpose of these tools are not to tell your audience what you are doing literally right now. This is the most common misunderstanding of these tools, and it leads to the famous question I get 10 times a day: “Why does anyone care what I am eating or doing?” In my opinion, your status or tweets should be used to share. Share interesting content, insights, or just general information of any kind. You know who your friends/connections/followers are, so think about them and their interests when sharing your thoughts. Do not tweet for the sake of tweeting. Tweet with your audience in mind.

2: It’s Magic: It is exactly because of all the hype that social media generates, that most people/companies who have never used it, think it is a magical solution. I think people who promote social media are somewhat to blame for this also. It is true that amazing things can happen as a result of effective use of the various social tools, but there is no magic involved. In fact, before you can see any results from social media, you need to invest some serious time building up your audience. The truth is this actually might be one of the downsides to social media compared to the traditional media tools. After all, you can easily post an ad in the newspaper, or make a radio or tv commercial with no preparation in advance. With social media you can tweet from now till tomorrow, but if no one is listening, you’re wasting your time. With social media, the results might be magical, the process is not.

3: It’s Rocket Science: Social media, like many other things, involves a lot of common sense. I like to compare it to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I do not think you need to be an SEO expert to know that to advance yourself on search engines, you should use relevant keywords and titles. Similarly, you do not need to be a rocket scientist or a social media guru (what the heck is that?) to know that tweeting the same thing over and over and sending people messages on how to get thousands of followers in a week when you have 200, is not going to work for you. Once again, as a result of all the buzz, people are intimidated by this unknown entity called social media, which in reality is simply a new form of communication, which happens to take place online. Social media, as much as people like to pretend it is rocket science, is mostly common sense, apply the same rules you use when communicating face to face, think about your audience, and you are off to a good start.

4: It’s One Way Conversation: In continuation to the previous bullet, there are still some people out there who think social media is a monologue. If, for one second, they would understand that the behavior they portray on the various social platforms would never fly in face to face interaction, and should therefore not be a part of social media, they would actually begin seeing some results. Tweeting about your ebook or your Forex robot will not generate hits unless you are there to reply when responded to. Huge companies like Kodak, Alpha Romeo, and Skittles are listening carefully to what people are saying about their brand. In fact, these companies barely spend time promoting themselves on social media. I don’t think it is always the worst thing in the world to do a little self promotion, but make sure you are around to listen as well.

5: Anyone Can Do It: The flip side of bullet 3 is that it might not be rocket science but it has been proven time and time again that not everyone can use this tool and achieve the desired results. While it might very well be common sense, apparently, many people do not have even have that. If you do not believe me, you can search Twitter for the words Britney, Forex, or Followers (as well as some other words I wont write here) and you will see what I mean. I am not saying you need a degree of any kind to use social media well, but you do need to have a basic understanding of human psychology. I do not believe there is such a thing as a social media guru, but certain people like Gary Vaynerchuck, for example, have proven repeatedly that they know how to effectively utilize this powerful tool (watch the interview with Gary in the video below). These are the kind of people that others want to learn from, not from someone with 60 followers and an ebook, just because they call themselves a guru in their Twitter profile.

There are many more misconceptions and misuses of social media that I encounter daily. Having said that, these are some of the most basic misunderstandings of what these tools are and how we can use them to benefit ourselves as well as the online community.

-Hillel

I have spoken to many people over the past year who are either running or starting a business and wanted to use social media as their primary marketing tool. They always assume that you can simply update your status on Facebook or send out a few tweets, and this will bring in the revenue. This is of course completely wrong and not only will this never happen, if you try to use social media in that way, you will damage your reputation, thereby ruining your chances of ever succeeding through the use of this tool.

There are some basic principles that must be implemented if you are using social media as a marketing tool for your business. The truth is most of these principles apply to non business users as well, but their importance are magnified when there is money involved. The “problem” is that in today’s day and age, people want to see immediate results, and think Twitter will deliver them. This could not be farther from the truth. It is true you can achieve amazing things on Twitter and other social networks, but just like more conventional tools, it will take time and effort. It might take even more time than tools you have used in the past, but at the end of the day, your return on investment will be like nothing you have ever seen.

Here are 5 basic principles businesses must implement in order to use social media successfully:

• Make Sure Someone Is Listening: I cannot emphasize this point enough. Twitter is worth virtually nothing if you do not have a serious following. When I say serious, I do NOT mean hundreds of thousands of followers. I mean you need to have quality and quantity. When it comes to your numbers, it is important that you tell this to yourself on a daily basis, Twitter is NOT a popularity contest, no matter how many people in your timeline tweet about the number of followers they have acquired. Numbers-wise a few hundred will suffice as long as they are quality followers. Quality followers means that they listen to what you tweet, and assuming they find it interesting, retweet you for their followers. It is also important to make your tweets interesting enough that people will want to retweet you. All it takes is one successful tweet, a few retweets, and you can reach a nice audience that might have taken you 3 months of paid advertising in a newspaper a year ago. The thing about Twitter is that you can have a huge number of followers, but if they are all bots or spam accounts, that is worth significantly less than a person who has a fraction of the number, but all quality followers.So here is the punchline for any business on Twitter. Before expecting to see any results, you must invest at least a few months in building up your network. That does not mean you cannot tweet about your business during that period, you can, but the full effect of Twitter will only be seen once someone is listening. The bottom line is, if you need immediate results, a newspaper might be a better option. If, however, you want to reach an incredibly wide and relevant audience, and are willing to invest your time in getting there, there is nothing like Twitter.

• Your Audience are People Just Like You: It seems that the number one mistake businesses make on Twitter is they forget who is reading their tweets. If you are a business and all you tweet about is how great your product is, with no interesting content, or any other added value, most people will consider you a spammer, and not only will they not buy what you are selling or even click your links, they will most probably unfollow you. No one said that just because you are selling something, it is forbidden to tweet about other topics. Keep your audience interested, engage your followers, tweet some funny articles, an interesting video here and there. It can even be about your industry, although it does not have to be. What is important is that when I look at your timeline, I do not see 100 tweets saying “Check out my new __” and a link, or  ”This guy saved $100,000 using __” and a link. No one is clicking that! Just like a non business user, you should think before tweeting “Would I click on a link like this?” before sending out every tweet.

• There is Selling and Then There is Selling: OK what?? What I mean is that there are really two ways of going about your tweets. You can stick to the regular spammy sales pitch, which is guaranteed to bring you worse results, or you can put the creative part of your brain to work and show your audience you spent time thinking about that last tweet. Make your sales pitch sound less like a sales pitch and more like you are offering your customers something from which they can really benefit. Now this is a touchy subject and I know what you are thinking. “Are you saying to trick my audience into clicking a link by using false advertising?” The answer is no, you need full transparency, no one likes to be tricked, but somehow you need to get across that you are indeed selling something, but it might very well be worth it to click your link. The thing is you are not trying to trick anyone because if you do not believe that your product is good enough that it will indeed benefit your customers, Twitter or no Twitter, your business will not succeed. If, however, you do believe in your offering and you are passionate about it, get that passion across in 120 characters (leave room for a retweet).

• Listen More Than You Talk: This is another fundamental principle of Twitter and social media. It is not about tweeting, it is about communicating. It is about dialogue, not monologue. If I had a dime for every person selling something on Twitter, who I replied to, and never heard back from, I would be able to support all the Twitter spammers out there. If you are selling something on Twitter, and not paying attention to your replies, you might as well close down shop. Do your tweeting, then pay close attention to your replies and DM columns and respond in a timely and relevant manner. Not only will this raise the level of your customers’ satisfaction, it will also give you a very good name on Twitter, and might even generate the exact hype you are looking for. If you consistently tweet about selling something, and never reply to tweets, you are just as bad as full fledged Twitter spammers, in fact, you are a full fledged Twitter spammer.

• Hear What People Are Saying: This is a continuation of listening on Twitter, but to the extreme. In addition to monitoring your replies and DMs, use Twitter Search to hear what people are saying about your company. If you are using a Twitter client like Tweetdeck, open a new column with a search for the name of your company, and pay close attention. I have heard many stories about companies responding to random tweets about their product. A friend recently tweeted about buying stale bread at a certain super market. She woke the next day, surprised to find a reply from the super market offering her to compensate her for the bread. Another friend tweeted about a nice car he saw on display at a mall only to be contacted by the company and offered to take the car for 24 hours. Lastly, a friend tweeted about his VOIP provider and how he was having problems, only to receive a very prompt response from the company offering their technical support. First of all, this is what it is all about, having a social presence, not just selling using social media. Let people know you are out there and listening, not just talking and selling. Second of all, the fact of the matter is I know of these stories since the person it happened to was so impressed, he/she shared it with his/her followers. At the end of the day not only will your customers feel more satisfied with your brand, having a true social presence will generate buzz and eventually bring you additional customers and interested parties. Isn’t that exactly what every business owner is essentially trying to achieve?

The Car My Friend Got To Drive

In conclusion, Twitter and social media are not secret doors to financial success. If someone tells you they are, they are lying and do not get it. It takes work and effort, but it still remains an unprecedented tool in its efficiency, and if you follow these rules as well as your common sense, you will soon understand that the buzz is very much justified.

Would love to hear your feedback. You can follow and contact me on Twitter here, or if you are not on Twitter yet , feel free to leave a comment.

-Hillel