This video from Social Blade Theater is a quite hilarious. As a fictional depiction of Tom Anderson from MySpace joining and trying out Facebook, this video takes an offbeat look at the competition between social media giants.

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See more funny social media happenings on this Social Media Blog.

I was browsing the genius of “Noise to Signal” today and came across a comic that broke down everything new social web users fear.

That pretty much sums up Web 2.0 fears, both for individuals as well as business.

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Find more interesting Web 2.0 content on this Social Media Blog.

A Guest Post By Erin Ryan

First off, this is not for those mainstream New Media folks that already know that Digg is a news site or why Twitter has nothing to do with a bird. This is meant for those who are new to the Social Mediaverse and are unsure, skeptical and maybe even too old fashioned to be persuaded.

As a twenty-eight year old growing up in the so-called “Tech Age”, as computers revolutionized and “the internet” was the coolest thing on the face of the earth, even if dial-up took 3 hours, my generation didn’t care, we would sit there and watch the little earth icon spin, for we knew that soon enough, our page that we requested would magically appear.

As seasons changed, so did the way we used the computer, we got to say bye bye to dial up and witness a birth given to higher speeds and faster bandwidths. This encouraged us to make webpages and blogs that people could subscribe to and leave comments, forums  were built on subjects that we cared about, e-mails changed the way we worked and the “IM” (Instant Messaging) began to change the way we socialized.

Gone are the days that “The Internet” is a scary place, for we have taken over the world with our choice to communicate via the web, and since we spent so much time here, the next logical step was a thing called Social Media.

What Is Social Media?

Social Media is an umbrella that covers your various activities and integrates technology, social interactions, videos, pictures and words. Not all of the above mentioned needs to be shared in one spot, but a few examples of such places that utilize these functions are most likely places you are either using or have heard of, such as; Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Mixx, YouTube and countless others. Social Media is the new-aged Media. It has traveled past radio and television, to allow us to connect globally in an interactive way. The difference between Media and Social Media is that we can receive information (what ever form it is in) in real-time and be able to share it with others in a fast fashion. The most significant difference is the social aspect, we are able to be heard, to share our voice, opinions and in some ways become the reporter.

With Media, there is a disconnect, we are the audience and we tune in to what ever news or entertainment news organizations that we’d prefer, with Social Media, whatever Social Network we belong to we can not only be fed all types of news, but we are connected with one another as a community, with “like” buttons, comment sections and tagging to what or whom we want. We are limitless and in this fast pace society we are enjoying the less time consuming approach to being in touch with our world.

Social Media without Labels

As I am sure you have come across many who claim to be Social mavericks, mavens or experts. In my opinion, there is no such thing. We are all capable of learning and understanding Social Media without labels. The industry is too fast pace and in a constant state of change that it is impossible, and in some ways irresponsible to have those believe that you have insider knowledge. Here’s the thing, Social Media is not a place to conquer but a place to be involved, to help shape the way we share and to be a member of a non-exclusive growing population.

Let’s Be Friends

So here’s to those that are New to Social Media, or to those who were unaware that the time they spent on Social Networking Sites was them taking part in this new form of Media. As you continue on your journey, let’s try and remember that the so-called “no0bs” or newbie’s are in fact people too and that we can all contribute to each others knowledge on how to better ourselves as we continue to grow within Social Media.

This is dedicated to all those who are a part of Social Media and didn’t even know it.

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Read more (or contribute!) to this Social Media Blog.
Image courtesy of BioJobBlog.

The doom and gloom crowd has been predicting Twitter’s demise for years.

• “Where is their revenue model?”
• “It goes down too much.”
• “Spam is taking over.”
• “WHERE IS THEIR REVENUE MODEL?”

After 2 years of defending Twitter, I’m starting to question whether or not I was wrong and they were all right.

Marketers, Spammers, and Bots, OH MY!

When Twitter first started making it’s mainstream push around a year ago, the percentage of tweets with links in them was very low. It was possible to get 10k clicks on links tweeted by “power users” with 20k followers and a lot of retweets.

Today, the situation is reversed. Thanks to the influx of marketers, spammers, and bots marketing, spamming, and botting, there are more tweets with links in them than not. Even a “power user” with a million followers has a hard time getting 2,000 clicks on links anymore and the retweets are down considerably or ignored completely.

Twitter’s influence on directing its users around the Internet has waned. Most do not trust links anymore after regular onslaughts of worms and malware have tainted us.

The spammers keep coming and regular users are growing wary. This is where the first Twitter Paradox comes in. Twitter wants to be open and encourage businesses to participate with the hopes of becoming an important method of communication and advertising, but they also want to keep the spammers out. These are two competing goals and thus far neither has been fully achieved. They may never be able to draw that line.

Technology that’s Slow to Upgrade

Twitter, as it has been well documented, was not built on a platform that is ideal for growth at the level they have experienced. Upgrading the systems and servers is a challenge and site performance has taken a beating since the site first started.

It was built for a limited group and thus has not been able to achieve true scalability even after 3 years. They have been able to embrace the “help” of applications and websites such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, but they are not directly associated with Twitter. In essence, they exist as fixes to a poorly conceived platform.

The Paradox here is that they would have to rebuild the entire platform from scratch to achieve true scalability and work as a standalone website rather than a hub for 3rd-party apps to flourish. Rebuilding the platform is costly, would diffuse the apps that have helped it to achieve the success it has seen so far, and would likely cause many to leave without gaining much other than a better running website. It’s a catch-22 decision that they cannot make – both choices lose.

The REAL Paradox – Make Money without Making Money

The beauty of Twitter is that it’s simple and free. Free of ads (for the most part), free of privacy issues (for the most part), and simple to use beyond belief. To make money, they will have to sacrifice something. Once they do, there will be an outcry from the blogosphere, the userbase, and mainstream media regardless of what the change is. That part is inevitable.

Twitter Advertising

If they start putting in more advertising regardless of how they do it, two things will happen:

1. Users won’t like it and will complain that the ads are too intrusive.
2. Advertisers won’t like it and will complain that the ads aren’t intrusive enough.

The results will be an angry userbase and unsatisfied advertisers (if you’re thinking Google adsense, please don’t tell me that’s a revenue model).

Selling Your Data

This is the most likely scenario for the magical, secret, VC-inducing revenue model that everyone from Google to Facebook wants. The “real-time web” and the data within there is a paradox of its own that companies are racing to control, but the data available on Twitter is a goldmine of behavioral marketing and search engine data-boosting firepower that everyone recognizes.

The problem is that once you start using the data, people will rebel and stop giving it. Regardless of how harmlessly the data is used, once people learn that their data (even though most is already public) is being used “against” them by businesses, they will fight it.

Keep in mind – it’s silly. People are willing to tweet intimate details about their lives to an open platform like Twitter, but once that data is collected and analyzed, they will hate it (even though it doesn’t make a difference and may actually improve their Internet experience).

Keep It Simple Stupid

In the end, Twitter will have to complicate things if they don’t make their money on ads or behavior targeting. They will have to make corporate accounts, premium accounts, premium features, donations, or any other forms of functionality changes that will complicate the site.

And thus, they will lose. The simplicity is what makes Twitter, and therefore cannot be changed. To do so would be suicide.

How Twitter May Not Fail

The one thing I’ve learned in my (2) years on Twitter is that they keep surprising me. They shouldn’t be as big as they are today, but they are. They should not be making the mainstream impact that they are. They shouldn’t be getting hefty valuations and a constant flow of cash, but they do.

They are much smarter than me, and they probably will succeed just because I don’t think they will. I hope they do. What else am I going to do while bored with my G1 waiting in line at the dry cleaners?

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Read more about Twitter on this Social Media Blog.

YouTube has been a valid social media marketing tool for a long time. Many companies are now starting to realize this. Others are starting to re-realize this.

Here is an example by Bacardi. The video itself is from 2007, but they are re-introducing it and its Halloween theme this month. It works on so many levels and fails on one level. First, the video:

First, the successes…

It Tells a Story

The last thing you want to do as a business trying to advertise a brand or a product is talk about the brand or product from the beginning. People are leaving television and getting more and more of their media intake through video sites like YouTube because the venue allows a level of non-marketing control. Sure, there are advertisements that pop up during videos, but for the most part they are normally advertising free. It’s everything Tivo offers without having to wait for shows to come on. You control, and that’s why you love it.

This video starts us off with some important elements:

• A clear setup (she’s going to a Halloween party and she isn’t dressing up)
• Suspense (dark neighborhood, creepy cab driver who takes note that she isn’t dressed up, plus the bunny man gives it a Kubrick-feel)
• Twist (nobody seems to be there, plus there seem to be a lot of bats around)

Branding is There, but doesn’t Interfere

Just as with television, the best branding is what happens when you aren’t being advertised to. In other words, the Bacardi logo on the top of the cab is all the branding the video needed until the end/outtro.

There are two ways to do this. Bacardi chose to be subtle and that fit perfectly with the tone of the video. The other way is to plaster branding throughout, almost making it comical. This is risky, but if the video is interesting enough, it can be forgiven.

Perfection in the “Casting”

• The main character is an attractive (but not overly so) woman, mature, and looks great in her “costume”.
• Her date is suave and mysterious, but has a goofiness about him that he displays upon entering the scene.
• The guy who plays the cabbie has a future as a cabbie if he doesn’t make it as an actor. He may have been a cabbie before acting. Perfection.

Look, Feel, Sound

This part couldn’t have been done any better. They picked the right scenes from the dark changing room to the roads to the venue for the party. They all fit in well with the tone of the video, yet still have an “excellence” about them to give viewers the feeling that this situation is not normal. The rooftop scene, the dancing, the bar… it all meshes.

The sound throughout is excellent. Not much more can be said. The right music, right buzzing at the right time; it all comes together nicely.

The Only Flaw

While the delivery was strong, the end could have been better. It works as a strong commercial but loses its ability to go viral by not having a quirky twist after the twist. For example, once it was revealed that the party was real, the bats were fake, and the man was just wearing a mask, he could have looked at the camera at the end, displayed fangs, and had his eyes glow, letting us know that she was really in danger all along.

Bacardi decided to keep it real and go after straight-forward marketing, and that’s perfectly fine. It holds down the viral, emailable, Tweetable aspect, but otherwise makes for a pretty decent push towards making a strong video for branding and promotion.

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Read more about Viral Marketing on this blog.

On the heels of the Driving Sales Executive Summit and the JD Powers convention, two thing is still clear in the automotive industry – car dealer SEO is at the top of the priorities lists and information about proper SEO is still being debated.

This post by Richard Valenta couldn’t have come at a more opportune time:

Offsite SEO vs. Onsite SEO – It’s All in the Follow-Through

Search engine optimization (SEO) has found steady footing within the automotive industry as dealers adopt cost-effective solutions for their marketing needs. Nearly every automotive marketing consultant and website design company touts their ability to deliver lead-generating, SEO-friendly content and design. But with a barrage of exotic claims incessantly thrown at car dealers, what exactly are the differences between vendors? How can dealers see through the misguided assertions and unfounded fairy-tales to find real results?

One way to address these questions is to see what vendors can seamlessly and strategically balance and integrate offsite SEO with onsite SEO. Let’s take a quick look at both of these crucial areas.

Onsite SEO – The Solid Content Foundation

The adage that “Content is King” has been used since the inception of Internet marketing, and the adage still holds true today. The bulk of what’s referred to as Onsite SEO deals with ensuring quality content is infused throughout a website. This content should of course include the keywords that your prospective customers would be using to find your website, but the content should also be original, informative, and should somehow meet the needs of visitors. Onsite content often includes title tags, meta keywords, meta descriptions, outbound and inner page linking, and of course the most important aspect is content in the form of HTML text. Easily readable by search engines, this content should clearly illustrate what a specific page is all about, engage readers, and have a structure that includes important keywords without keyword stuffing.

Offsite SEO – The Art of Building Trust

Naturally, with the focus by SEO consultants and web developers on onsite content, Google and other search engines must take into account other factors when ranking a website. This is where offsite SEO comes into play. Unfortunately, this is also where many SEO consultants and web developers tend to throw in the towel. Offsite SEO includes tactics such as link building, social media marketing, press release submission, article marketing, and sometimes reputation management. All of these tactics deal with getting others to discuss your website, and thus offsite SEO builds trust for your website and your brand.

The Right Balance Outweighs the Hype

The real reason why Offsite SEO is heavily weighted in Google’s ranking algorithm is simple – onsite SEO is easy! Quick and simple to create, onsite SEO is all too often stuffed, duplicated, cloaked, and spammed, forcing search engines to trust it less and less. Instead, Google increasingly wants to see what others think of a website, and to do this Google relies on what’s happening off of your website just as much (if not more) than what’s happening on your website.

Offsite SEO tactics are critical for success because it’s often difficult and time consuming to acquire high-quality inbound links and positive social interactions. Sure there are ways to buy links and manipulate social media websites, but Google is increasingly seeing past these tactics as true editorial inbound links and real social interactions only come to those websites that can deliver authority and credibility, and that’s what organic rankings are all about. Without offsite SEO, onsite SEO cannot support rankings alone in the face of aggressive competition. If your website company or SEO consultant is unable to address both of these crucial areas simultaneously, your SEO strategy will suffer from a gross imbalance that could give your competition the competitive edge.

The 1st Driving Sales Executive Summit in Las Vegas, NV, is being held 10/13-10/14 in the Hard Rock Casino.

Here is Jared Hamilton opening the event:

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For more information about Automotive Social Media, read more of this blog.

Digg is known for definitively dropping the “ban hammer” on those who post content that includes nipples. Apparently, the rules have changed.

This screenshot from a video has been modified to a PG-13 level, but the original video does include visible nipples that are not-so-hidden. While I have nothing against the submitter (nor anything against the video) I feel the double standard here. The content was pretty darn funny, as the nearly-4000 Diggs clearly says, but it just doesn’t belong on Digg.

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Read more about Digg on the Social Media Blog.

It can be argued that those of us who tweet links to content on the web are the most annoying of Twitter users. That is the “category” that I fit in, so it makes sense that I would exclude my personal type from this list.

Otherwise, there are probably dozens of other types that are just as annoying.  This is, of course, a partial list, but we’ll be expanding the post once more annoying Twitter types come to light. In the meantime, here’s the first 14. Post any that we missed in the comments or tweet at us with your suggestions.

1. The FOREX Spammer

With as much money as people are apparently making on FOREX, it’s amazing that they have time to work their Twitter accounts.

2. The Linkjacker

When you post links to stories, you really should make sure that everyone can see what the story says rather than link to your own site and expect people to click through from your site to the source content. Just a thought.

3. The YELLLLLLERRRRRR

IF YOU TWEET, EMAIL, IM, OR DO ANY FORM OF COMMUNICATION IN ALL CAPS, IT MEANS THAT YOU’RE YELLING WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY!!!!!! MAKE SURE THAT WHAT YOU YELL IS WORTH YELLING!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!

4. The Twitter Gamer

Unlike many, I have nothing against the games on Twitter like SpyMaster, Mafia, Ninja, whatever. I actually play SpyMaster in the background. However, there’s more to Tweeting than posting your last gaming action. For those not in the game, it can get rather mundane if all you post is who you’ve assassinated, what weapons you’ve purchased, and how we can join your clan/family/ring/dojo.

5. The “Get 100 Followers a Day” Spammer

Have you ever noticed that most of the accounts that Tweet about being able to pick up hundreds of Twitter followers per day only have 84 followers?

6. The Celeb Who Has 2 million People Following their 3 Tweets Per Month

I know. Everyone loves Oprah. You can’t say anything bad about her because she is perfection boxed up into human form. Still, what are her 2 million followers doing? She doesn’t talk to any of them. She rarely tweets at all (going on a month of inactivity).  It reminds me of the people who followed Forrest Gump on his runs across the country. They were there, waiting for him to say something magical, and it never came.

7. Porn Spammers

It’s the Internet. Porn is everywhere. Why would anyone go to Twitter to find it? Answer: they don’t.

8. The Repeater Tweeter

These are amongst my favorites. You see them in your stream – the people who have something so important to say that they have to say it over and over again in case you missed it 30 seconds before.

9. The Random Tweeter of the Utterly Mundane

I know Twitter in its purest form is supposed to be somewhat mundane, but some people take it way too far.

10. The MLM Spammer

Everyone has to make a living, and because Twitter is about networking it has become a natural fit for the MLM crowd. That doesn’t make it any less annoying.

11. The Quoter of Witty Wisdom

Some of the best quotes I’ve ever seen came from Twitter. I have been known to throw out some of my faves myself. Still, that shouldn’t be ALL that you tweet, should it?

12. The Super-Fan

Everyone idolizes someone whether they admit it or not. I feel bad and somewhat uncomfortable when I see those who are doing anything they can to get a reply from those they idolize. What will they do if they get a response?

13. The Account Named After A Twitter Action

That’s nice. What are you going to Tweet about? “Following @0boy back because he followed me!”,  “Following @soshable back because he followed me, too!”, etc.

14. The Tweeter of the Same Link 500 Different Ways

They have one link they’re pushing. It’s the only thing they will ever tweet about, so if you’re really, really interesting in everything pertaining to that link, please follow these people. You won’t be disappointed.

15. The White Teether

I never knew about this one until @bobf_vstpgh pointed them out to me. Once I did a search, I discovered that there seems to be a growing number of people Tweeting about white teeth! Who would have known?

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I know there are more of them out there. Let me know via comment here, @soshable or @0boy if you know of any other annoying Twitter user types.

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Read more about Twitter on this Social Media Blog.

So, you’re not sold. You still believe that sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace are passing fads that will fall to oblivion by 2010.  While I do believe that some sites will come and go, grow and dissolve, there is zero doubt that social media as a whole will continue to grow to the point that it encompasses most of our daily interactions.

It is ever-becoming a more important part of our lives. This video below puts it all into perspective. Thanks to @murnahan for showing it to me and @equalman for making it. Great stuff.

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Read more on this social media blog.