Hi {client},

Twitter is a great channel for message distribution, but in moderation and I’m not confident you’ll see the return for your efforts as much as you would through other channels. If you’re objective is to build brand awareness through social media, I would suggest a more holistic strategy that includes content development, content distribution and community involvement.

Content development does not have to be contextual. For example, you might find that a video would get more traction online. {specific strategy outline.}

Content distribution is really where social media starts to come into play. Build a twitter profile for {brand}. Distribute messages about the {brand’s primary topic} and related topics. As a note, I would highly suggest staying away from any type of deliberate self promotion. Social media users do not want to be pitched to, they want community involvement and good content.

Community involvement is all about ensuring that you own the {brand} throughout high profile social sites. There are probably hundreds of {brand’s primary topic} related micro social networks. Build a profile for {brand} as many as you feel you can manage. These are also great places to distribute your content.

As you can see there is a lot involved in bringing a brand into focus through social media. Trust me, you’ll get out of it what you put in. I know everyone is talking about Twitter right now, even Oprah…but I would again stress the holistic approach I’ve outlined. It makes for a much more natural evolution and viral consumer response every social marketer optical amplifier is looking for.

Thanks,

Tanner Hobin

1. My Family (Wife, Daughter, Mom, Dad, Sisters, Brother, Grandparents, In-Laws, all of them…)
2. Did I mention my Wife?
3. Did I mention my Daughter?
4. My Faith
5. Our House
6. My Job
7. Beer, both kinds free and cold. What? We all know there’s only two kinds of beer.
8. My iPhone, yeah it’s in the top ten.
9. Filet Béarnaise at Sidney Street
10. Football, both American and European
11. The Interwebs
12. Christmas
13. Beaches. Not the movie!
14. Media Temple
15. мебели стара загораWordpress
16. CSS Tricks
17. Nettuts
18. jQuery
19. Digsby
20. My Domain
21. Last.fm

Which is why I’ve devoted 2009 to increasing posts and improving quality of content. With that said, the plan is to build a separate blog that will house all of my search marketing, social media, web development and other business type posts while keeping this blog personal. I’ll be unveiling the new blog January 2009. Stay Tuned…

Available November 2008!

Features Include:

• New Admin UI – Primary menu ajaxified, so no more click/reload to manage and click/reload to post.
• Plugin Upload Integration – Load and activate through admin, no more download then ftp then activate.
• Customizable Views – Drag and drop elements in post and page views. Exclude elements that you don’t use.
• Quick and Bulk Edit – Mass edit features for managing post.
• Replying to Comments – Reply to comments within the admin panel. Oh yeah, they’re threaded!

Here is a full list of panels with times and locations.

You can purchase wristbands for the event here.

1. Login to Network Solutions

   

   Once logged in, click Domains then Manage Domain Names

   
   

2. Edit Domain Details

   

   Under Domain Details for your domain, near the right side, click “Turn Off or Request Authorization Code

   
   

3. Edit Domain Protect

   

   Check BOTH “Leave Domain Protect off” and “Request Authorization Code”, then SAVE near the bottom right corner.

   
   

4. Authorization Code Emailed

   

   Network Solutions will email the authorization code to the email address of the primary account holder.

   
   

5. Login to MyDomain.com

   

   Create a MyDomain.com account if you haven’t already and login. Then click “Transfer Your Domains To Us” near the bottom of the home tab.

   
   

6. Check Transfer Ability

   

   Type the domain name in the text box and click “Check”. This checks to make sure the domain is not protected and is eligible for transfer.

   
   

7. Domain Transfer

   

   If the domain is eligible for transfer you can add it to your cart and proceed to chekout. The transfer is typically not immediate, so check your MyDomain account for status. DNS info should remain in tact, but again its a good idea to check back.

   
   

As a comparison, a 5 year renewal through Network Solutions is $99.95. Through MyDomain, a 5 year renewal is $43.79.

Update:
Here is the code to embed the video. I’ve changed all the long urls to tinyurls, not to hide the source but to make the code much smaller. Enjoy!

One specific discussion over dinner one night really stuck with me. A couple social media critics positioned themselves at my table for no other reason than to engage in a debate regarding the value of social media in the overall picture of internet marketing. Their main point of debate was that marketers have no place in social media and that social advertising is inherently biased. I whole heartedly agree that social advertising is biased, but I disagree that marketers should avoid the space. My primary concern with their argument was that advertising is a matter perspective. This is extremely true in the realm of social media. Take for example the signs on the highway for food and gas. Travelers typically ignore them as advertising until they need food or gas. Then the signs transform into a welcomed visual pointing people in the direction of what they seek most at that time. Social media, in my opinion, is like the highway sign analogy on crack. It’s a space for sharing, identifying with a brand identity and networking with like minded individuals.

furniture VidenovIf your message needs further explanation, try re-constructing it before publishing. Or add a link to further details.

This lesson is not limited to twitter, just channels for content distribution that limit characters or message size.

The study is segmented by Waves in which each segment signifies a number of survey submissions within a single month a year. Wave 1 included 15 countries, 7,500 users and was completed in September 2005. Wave 2 included 21 countries, 10,000 users and was completed in June 2007. Wave 3 included 29 countries, 17,000 users and was completed in March 2008. Though in my opinion the sample sizes seem small the validity of the data appears legit.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Methodology
• What is Social Media?
• Global Snapshot
• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Sharing Content
• Consuming Content
• Final Word

View it in full screen, some of the text is hard to see otherwise.

| View

1. Text friends notifying them of Madeline’s arrival.
2. Call family notifying them of Madeline’s arrival.
3. Email friends and family pictures of Maddie.
4. Sooth a fussy Maddie with Bob Marley and DMB.
5. Show off pictures of Maddie.
6. Show off our family website.
7. Monitor feeding times
8. Check the weather to see if it’s ok to take Maddie for a walk.
9. Get directions to the pediatrician.
10. Call my new daughter.

Here is the script I used for the typing effect.

If you want a custom 404 error page on your Wordpress blog, simply edit the 404.php page in your theme.
Typically found here:
wp-content/themes/(your active theme)/404.php

Here are some funny 404 pages that inspired me:
404 Error Pages: Reloaded – Smashing Magazine
17 brilliant 404 pages and why they are cool – Royal Pingdom

I took a screenshots throughout the process with the idea of collaborating them into a slideshow. The slide show starts with my old theme and moves through the process as I took the default theme and re-designed it.

Here is a list of the resources I used for developing the new theme.

• Dreamweaver CS3
• Photoshop CS3
• Colorschemer
• I used this little tutorial for creating multiple widget sidebars

BERLIN (Reuters) – German unions on Thursday called for a consumer boycott of Nokia products to protest against the cellphone maker’s plans to close a German plant.

“Whoever buys a cellphone today should think about the choice they are making and what catastrophic consequences the company’s actions in Bochum will have for thousands of workers,” Muscheid, who heads the DGB in the southwest state of Rhineland-Palatinate, said.

German Unions Boycott = Drop in Cellphone Sales
Drop in Cellphone Sales = Definitely Closing the Plant
Definitely Closing the Plant = German Unions Boycott

Hmmm….

Dear pleasantcreature@gmail.com,
Your personalized Cease and Desist letter is on its way.

More to follow…or should I say less?

Have you ever met someone that used foul language so much that it essentially loses its meaning? The same effect appears to be happening across social sites. Certain users are Digging, Stumbling, and Twittering everything under the sun, and quite frankly it’s getting obnoxious. And it all appears to be for nothing more than increasing the popularity of a user account. What really bothers me about this is that it dilutes the content.

A friend of mine, Andrew Nagy said it best, “Social media is only beneficial the way any kind of social interaction is…moderation. if you’re at a party and one guy keeps walking up to every person and asking questions and being overly friendly, that guy usually gets beat up, or at least gets beer poured on him. So the moral of the story is, when you’re interacting with social media, don’t be ‘that guy’”.

So in the style of Mr. Tony Sinclair, “What’s true for shrimp cocktail is also true for social media…always in moderation.”

Votrs.com Links:

• Votrs.com
• About Votrs.com
• Social Media Scanner

Embed

Christmas is awesome. First of all, you get to spend time with the people you love. Secondly, you can get drunk and no one can say anything. Third, you give presents. What’s better than giving presents? Or fourth, getting presents. So four things, not bad for one day. It’s really the greatest day of all time.

– Michael Scott, Regional Manager, Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, Inc.

Happy Holidays!

If you haven’t had a chance to check out SEOLogs.com, please take a moment to do so. Badi really puts some great posts together. If you feel so inclined, why not join his community and help him win the ProBlogger Contest?

Asterpix enables users to easily create hypervideos and share them through websites, blogs and email. Analogous to hypertext, hypervideo provides an interactive experience by allowing viewers to select objects of interest to get more information or navigate the video.

Here is an example of how it works.

During my lunch break, I went to my jeweler to pick up the ring. The entire purchasing experience was flawless. Greg at Novak Jewelers was attentive, creative, and helpful. He designed and created the ring that I knew Jen would love. Being the social media addict that I am, I decided to review Novak Jewelers on the review site, Yelp. While writing the review, my colleague Reem Abeidoh asked me what I was sharing on Yelp. After informing her about my intentions, she simply asked, “Are you crazy?”

For those who are wondering why Reem questioned my sanity, the answer is pretty simple. The Yelp review I was in the process of authoring would have appeared on my Facebook page. Guess who my friend is on Facebook? Jen…

The other styles include:

Fabulous

Beer League

Frat Party

Cheerleader

Join the Community!

After joining, I will send you a private message via MyBlogLog with a link to the red cup request form. The offer will be available until 12:00am (CST) on November 30, 2007. Supplies are unlimited, so take your time and please only join if you like my blog. Unfortunately, at this time I can not ship outside the 48 contiguous United States. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

So, would you use this unique search platform?

1. Ad Heavy – Blogs that appear to be ad heavy take away from the users experience. Try to limit or remove all ads to force more attention towards what people came for in the first place, the articles. Monetizing a blog is important to most bloggers, but there are more unobtrusive and useful ways to accomplish this. For example, an Amazon.com feed of products that are related to the blog topic may interest users. Maybe even a marketplace of products that are specific to the blog. The key to blog advertising is relevancy. If the advertisements are heavy and not related to the blog topic, it will only have a negative affect on the readers experience.
2. Articles – Blogs are built around articles. They must be relevant and compelling enough for readers to be interested in. One important factor in producing articles is the title. Compelling well phrased title’s will engage readers and beg them to read more. Images and links to relevant sources within articles will also hold readers’ attention. Some ideas for more compelling articles could include: Lists (i.e. Top 10… or 21 of my favorite…), Offbeat/Extreme (i.e. Women had bullet in head for 64 years!), and Research/How-to’s (i.e. How to Build a Washers Set). The most important element of an article is again the title, so make it a good one.
3. SEO – Search engine optimization should be a serious focus for all bloggers. Optimizing the title and meta information of blog posts for specific keywords within the article will help to insure the posts are found when readers search. Inline text links to other posts when relevant is also a good tactic to take advantage of. With everything mentioned so far, relevancy is key. SEO is also all about the details. Insert relevant keywords into the link title attributes whenever applicable.
4. WordPress – Consider a better blogging platform. WordPress in my opinion is the best blog platform available today. They offer search friendly features as well as many plugin’s to enhance user experience. Their interface can be a bit cumbersome for novice bloggers, but it’s totally worth investing the time to learn.
5. Networking – Blogging is communal; leverage this by subscribing to other blogs and using tools like MyBlogLog to reach out to other bloggers. BE CAUTIOUS! Avoid self promotion at all costs, instead build relationships with bloggers of similar interest and engage in a mutually beneficial relationship. Quid pro quo.

This small list is a sure fire way of boosting traffic to a blog, but it will be short lived if not repeated in some consistency. If you want the fire to grow you must feed it.

Let’s face it, no one wants a sucky blog. Take a look at this list and adjust accordingly. It’s always great to get other bloggers opinions regarding your blog, but actually doing something about it is what makes a blogger successful.