Why Pitch Me?
It’s pretty simple, actually. I like to write. Sometimes, I need new content ideas. And that’s where you come in! If you’ve got a great product or service that needs some exposure (or maybe just a few backlinks), I may be the blogger for you.
How to Pitch Me
First of all — connect with me! Comment on my posts, find me on Twitter, at an event, whatever. Your chances are much better if I’ve interacted with you before.
Secondly, please target your pitch. We all get enough e-mail spam, please don’t contribute any more to mine.
Here’s some help: I’m an Internet marketer, I dabble in web design, like New England sports, brew beer, watch movies, am an A/V nerd, and much more.
Finally, contact me!
Me likey! Nice site. I’m about to switch over from Squarespace to Wordpress myself.
Thanks Eddy! Why are you switching from Squarespace?
Hey Colin. Thanks for the feedback. We think in the long run, Posterous will be the way to go. But totally understand your decision at the moment. More themes are coming, and many other amazing features.
Don’t forget you can also use Posterous and autopost to your other sites.
thanks
Thanks for commenting Sachin! Like I said in the post, I still totally dig your product, it’s just not the right tool right now. That’s not to say I wouldn’t still use it for other projects.
I’m excited to see what you guys have in the pipeline — who knows, down the road, I may switch back!
Spot on, Colin. It’s kind of nice to see a general decline in total SEO obsessiveness. I think folks are finally realising that it’s, like you say, just one part of the picture. A lot of my clients are now more concerned with the holistic performance of their sites … and as I’m finding, it usually boils down to whether or not they have some good, legitimate content.
P.S. Have you switched to WordPress!? I thought you were a strict Drupal guy?
Thanks Keighl! You really do have to take that holistic approach now. Just one tactic won’t cut it.
And yes, I did switch to Wordpress, but I moved off of Posterous. Drupal is fantastic, I just didn’t want to spend the extra time setting up a Drupal site
While the interface is lightyears ahead of Wordpress (working on my personal Wordpress site is outright painful in comparison) and its SEO friendliness is superb, Squarespace just doesn’t have the flexibility I ultimately want. Stereotypical analogy -> Wordpress:Squarespace = Linux:Mac.
I love your insights. Some of the best ideas come from failures and using your creativity. You have done an awesome job here Colin. Excellent insights.
That’s a solid review, Colin. Sadly enough, there are people out there who are pretty unhappy in their career, but think that if they continue enduring the “misery,” the success will come — which is a completely misguided assumption. Once I graduated college, and became part of the “working world,” my father always used to ask me (and still does), “Are you enjoying the journey?”
When you get right down to it, that’s the most exciting–and rewarding–part of success. Otherwise, you’re merely spinning your wheels and wasting your life. Sounds harsh, but I truly believe that.
BC
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed. I agree with your point, some of the best creative ideas can come out of failure. If you never fail, you never learn, right?
Collin, very astute post. When clients aske me about SEO I frequently tell them the dirty little secret is that SEO is really not all that difficult. There is an “art” factor involved and creative means of improving your ranking can benefit but a lot of SEO is largely mechanics which can be learned and often automated.
I would agree that SEO becomes a tool in a service providers arsenal but not a stand alone business.
Collin, good points across the board. The danger is that a lot of people don’t know what they don’t know and are easily taken. This list is a good starting point for people to consider whether or not the person they are talking to knows what they are doing. More to the point, I think people see online marketing & SEO as some sort of holy grail for traffic and sales and “guaranteed rankings” are seductive but I know more than one client (prior to engaging me I’d like to add) that had gotten burned by that.
Site owners have to think longer term. As with anything else.. if it sounds too good to be true…
Collin, I don’t run into a lot of clients that say they don’t want to create content but rather haven’t even thought about their content to begin with and it’s not only your best marketing technique, it’s the foundation of your site.
For many, I think creating the content is daunting but a little planning goes a long way. I did a tutorial on content mapping to help people get their heads wrapped around developing content and seeing the big picture. It makes it much easier moving forward if you have a content plan. It’s a bit long but it’s a video tutorial that I think people will find useful. http://www.vsellis.com/wordpress-how-to/buildin...
Thanks for the comment Scott! I enjoyed the tutorial video on your site, and you’re right — a little planning does go a long way.
Spot on. SEO isn’t TOO difficult, it does just take time to learn and time to do.
I love a creative thinker!
If you need an 11th, check out http://gangwayadvertising.posterous.com/ Just because I write it doesn’t mean I’m biased…oh wait, maybe it does. I agree with you on the Twitter stream “flood”. Mashable puts out a story and I can guarantee that in the next hour I’ll see 45 re-tweets about it. I already follow @Mashable, thanks. I got it from them the first time… I’ve started to really pare down my stream so I don’t miss out on the people who really have something to say. I will be interested to see what new talent is uncovered during your challenge!
I saw your tweet about updating your status to 12 blogs, clicked on the link and went “Sweet! He added my blog to the roster!” My next thought was, “Crap now I gotta step it up and be more thoughtful and interesting than ever.” Bring it on, I say. Bring. It. On.
Thank you for the vote of confidence.
Interesting Idea, there are many good blogs out there that just not getting heard.
The Challenge has captured the imagination of people around the world.
socialmention & boardreader are new to me and I believe could be quite useful. At the Granada we use a lot of Yahoo Pipes & Google Reader and Alerts for bands coming to our venue. Thanks for the posting, you’ve give me a great idea.
Also, I would say if you create these for companies you can organize them into folders and then click on the down arrow on the folder in the main view of google reader and you can “create a bundle” and then share the bundle with people. If they subscribe to the bundle it will subscribe them all of the feeds.
I’ve heard a lot about Pipes, though haven’t ever messed with the service myself. I’ll have to explore the “create a bundle” option, never used it before, but can see how that would be VERY useful. Thanks Brad!
Google Alerts & Twitter Search also have several advanced features for fine-tuning a search. This is especially useful for companies that share similar names. For example, if I work for Delta Airlines but don’t need Google Alerts for Delta Faucets, I can create an alert for “Delta –faucets”, and that will exclude any result that refers to “Delta Faucets”
Both Google Alerts & Twitter Search build the search equation for you on their sites:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
http://search.twitter.com/advanced
Collin, Pipes is good stuff, and would be worth your time to check out. Excellent post here though, very thoughtful!
It looks like someone — in this case Google — has created a tool of real value to herd all these cats running through the social media landscape. My experience with things like these are to set one up on something you are merely interested in, not flamingly passionate about, as a test run. You will see where it works for you, were it doesn’t and you can fine tune it. THEN use it on the really core stuff that gets your heart a’pumpin’ in the morning.
But for a content provider like me this is a great way to pull together substance I need without having to sift thru a lot of chaff.
LOVED the post from Peter Kim about The Marketer’s New Clothes. Really excellent!
Agreed. Very creative.
Colin,
Great comprehensive article. Very well done!
Keep up the good work.
Scholty
That’s a great idea. I hope it works for you! Thanks for commenting.
Great advice. I’ve used tweetlater before, but haven’t done much with it since they rebranded. I’ll have to investigate. Thanks Craig!
Yes! as Internet marketers, it’s very helpful to know some of the advanced search operators. Thanks for the tips!
Thanks Scott!
I already have some of these feeds going, but I see that I have more to set up. Thanks for the info.
Thanks for the love!
is there a way to take that info from google reader and get it in a daily digest style email like you do with google alerts? That would make my day.
If I find a way, you can be sure that I’ll blog about it. Unfortunately, I do not know of a way to do that right now. But if there was, you’re right — it would be fantastic.
Thanks for including my blog post on your reading list for today! I am honored to be in such great company.
This is a really cleaver idea indeed. Throwing some love at the little guy can definitely pay off in the long term.
I’m honored. Thanks for the mention!
Just wanted to thank you for inclusion here, Colin — makes me proud to be included alongside several of my personal friends here. Cheers!
You’re welcome! Keep up the good work!
Yes. There’s so much good content out there, just waiting to be discovered. Plus its good to get your info from a variety of sources.
Thank you for including me in your update! Check back on the post, because Grant contacted me and there’s an UPDATE on the story!
Mr. Grant Turck is a smart man. He tweeted me this morning.
Thanks for the link love!
Great idea! How fun.
Anybody need a candidate for Denver or real estate check out our blog.
Hey Colin, thanks for including me here! Glad you enjoyed the post.
You’re welcome! Keep up the good work.
I work in B2B and we use LinkedIn frequently with a lot of success. I would say that LinkedIn is actually the most successful social network. They make more money than Facebook or Twitter. They have less users, but they have quality over quantity.
Nice job with the headline, Colin. It fulfilled its purpose, raised my hackles a bit, and got me to read the article.
Before I left my prior job, I had a LinkedIn account that I cultivated a bit, but probably not as effectively as I should have done. Like you, I wasn’t seeing real value from the effort to do so.
Since then, my attitude has changed significantly.
By all accounts, LinkedIn is an extremely valuable resource for recruiters, facilitating broad access to information about current and not-quite-yet job seekers at a very low cost. I’ve spoken to many recruiters and been part of related discussions in various job networking groups. They all say that LinkedIn has become their primary resource for seeking qualified candidates for jobs.
That means, of course, that those seeking employment (like myself) need to be active and engaged in that space. LinkedIn (even with its flaws) offers a standardized and accepted way to document your skill set and interests, not to mention a mechanism for connecting to others in your current or desired industry.
If networking is the key to finding new opportunities — and I believe that it is — LinkedIn is a necessary tool in the job seekers arsenal.
Perhaps the growth of the service has flattened because the rate of job losses has slowed.
If that’s the case, then I most certainly agree that LinkedIn will have to do better going forward. As those searching for jobs return to the workforce, then LinkedIn will have to offer a compelling reason for those people to stay active as well as a reason for new subscribers to join it.
Overall, I’ve gotten a great deal of value from LinkedIn out of being able to talk to folks I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to reach, plus a few calls from recruiters for unadvertised, targeted jobs, although nothing that progressed far enough to tempt me away from my current employer.
The recent “me too” features added considerable value, particularly the enhanced discussion and sharing abilities within groups and the ability to take notes on your contacts within LinkedIn
With that said, I think there is definitely room for them to both innovate and get current users more involved via marketing efforts instead of platform changes. Many of my contacts that I know in person are just on LinkedIn because other people are and barely fill out their profiles (as compared to the ones that I’ve me through blogging and LinkedIn Q&A/Group interaction). They certainly don’t interact.
Will they actually DO these things as a company? I hope so.
Great comment David. I appreciate your viewpoint here. You’re absolutely right. LinkedIn still offers a ton of value for those seeking skilled employees, or those who are looking for new jobs.
I guess my questions is, once people who are looking for new jobs find them — then what? Does LinkedIn provide a reason for users to come back once gainfully employed, other than a means for a centralized contact database, or virtual resume?
Me too. It would be a big waste to see the network continue to stagnate. I have a lot of contacts there who have mostly inactive profiles (but then again, Twitter does have the same issue). I’d just like to see LinkedIn give users more of a reason to come back to the site on a regular basis, and maybe facilitate opportunities for new business.
I do like the headline. I mentioned the other day to someone that I am bored with Linkedin. So you are right on target that there are better places to communicate with people.
Yes, I have seen that they are a profitable network. Can I ask what specific B2B industry you work in?
We often receive admonitions that when we find employment, we should continue to work our LinkedIn profiles/accounts/relationships to make it easier to leverage the service if and when we’re in the job hunt again.
But that’s trying to motivate with a stick, and probably won’t work well. We’ll see.
Here are some links which provide at least a bit of insight into their plans for the full spectrum of LinkedIn customers, not just job seekers:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/linked...
http://blog.linkedin.com/2010/01/26/linkedin-ad...
http://blog.linkedin.com/2010/01/27/linkedin-am...
http://blog.linkedin.com/2010/01/28/linkedin-jo...
Hello I am very impressed with this blog, thanks for sharing.
I will stop by soon …
Financial services and education.
LinkedIn is my favorite networking tool. I enjoy LinkedIn as a push / pull marketing tool. It’s excellent for gathering target audience information and feedback, and driving audiences to sites, products and services. I’m a LinkedIn fan … still.
I definitely agree with your assessment of the Twitter integration. I suppose it’s OK if a) you mainly use Twitter for status updates, not conversation, and b) you don’t care about updating your status to Facebook, MySpace, and wherever else. Better solution: HelloTxt and Ping.fm.
But on some of your other points…
First of all, who cares if the features encourage infrequent usage? In fact, I thought that was part of the point of LinkedIn — high value from low utilization. LinkedIn is the one site where I still get a lot of value from relatively little effort. That’s called leverage. Productivity. Furthermore, the idea that this is a “problem” for LinkedIn presumes that advertising is their primary revenue model, and that’s not the case.
Developer options? Meh. Maybe I’m just not thinking far enough outside of the box, but most of the apps that I’ve even seen are just not that interesting. Display my other business-related content on the site, i.e., my blog and a slide presentation. Seriously, what’s the killer plug-in app for LinkedIn? It’s not a big, huge, wide-open field of possibilities like on Facebook. I just don’t get excited about “What can LinkedIn connect to?” That’s not where its business value lies.
RE: the business value of LinkedIn… simple answer. The whole point is that learning to use LinkedIn effectively is a business strategy issue, not a mechanical/technical issue. Some people luck into it, a few others figure it out on their own. Most people aren’t going to really learn to make effective business use of LinkedIn simply by doing it, or reading an FAQ or two. It’s a business skill, just like selling or making presentations, that can benefit from training, best practices, etc.
As far as where/how LinkedIn can innovate, I think they need to focus on being better facilitators of relationships. For example, since day 1, I’ve said that they needed to have some kind of relationship strength indicator. It would help address the whole open networker vs. tight networker issue, the challenge of asymmetrical relationships, etc.
Another example…there are still several cases of interactions in LinkedIn that would benefit from the ability to quickly send a note to someone. For example, when I forward an introduction for someone, I like to send a note back to that person — I have to go through several steps to do that. LinkedIn has started incorporating some of those things, but they haven’t sat down with someone who fully understands good networking to go through all of the different use cases.
I think the biggest opportunity is for them to embed “just in time” training into the system. Teach people good networking and relationship-building practices as part of the user interface. Again, they’ve got bits and pieces of this, and that’s great. Make it a fundamental design principle throughout the system.
They could also start using some of the content on their blog, FAQ, etc., better in context. Imagine if after sending an introduction request for a job inquiry, LinkedIn popped up a message saying, “I see you may be looking for a job. Would you like to learn more about best practices for job search on LinkedIn and read some case studies?”
The greatest innovation potential isn’t in the technology, it’s in helping people develop the soft skills to use LinkedIn more effectively.
Thanks for the comment Scott. I think you make some valid points here. If LinkedIn had been visibly doing any of these things, I wouldn’t have felt the need to write this post. In fact, I hope someone from LinkedIn is listening and sees your ideas for improvement, because they’re quite good.
That said, the biggest takeaway from the post is that LinkedIn isn’t innovating, and as I mentioned on Twitter — I don’t think that’s ever a good spot to be in — even if you think LinkedIn doesn’t need it. I’ve started putting LinkedIn in the same category as sites like ebay and craigslist. Enormously popular websites that people use because the have to, not necessarily because they want to. I think that the lack of innovation opens the door for competition and when you combine that with flattening traffic… it doesn’t look good.
I don’t think the stagnated usage suggested in the post is the main culprit. Linked In is used for business, and right now, with the economy is a cautionary state, people may not be really in a “mood” to explore anything business-related. I do not know any studies, but intuition suggest that in a down economy, people may be just looking for a diversion, rather than a means to a cure. Plus, there are a number of business sites that are appealing to small business, so Linked In may be fighting for eyeballs in a market reluctant to spend.
I use Linked In tremendously, and have seen benefits from it. But the benefits take time to materialize and required constant engagement from me. Not bad. But if I were unemployed and had little job prospects, I would take more comfort in Facebook. Although companies recruit in FB, there are games and communication with family and friends. FB’s growth is understandable.
I am not suggesting that Linked In become like Facebook. I am only stating that an offline reality is potentially causing an online reality.
David… thanks again for the comment. I’ll be checking out these links soon!
In “real life,” I like to stay connected with the people I know. We lead a busy life, and LinkedIn helps us remain up-to-date as to what is happening in our connections’ professional lives.
This is going to continue to be a issue if you are a person with a large amount of Twitter Followers. A good majority of your Twitter followers not only live elsewhere but you don’t know them either. Since Foursquare and Gowalla have a “Find your Friends on Twitter” integration built in, this is going to continue to be an issue. Unfortunately, as Foursquare and Gowalla becomes more popular this number of random followers will continue to grow.
I also have a bunch of friend requests that I haven’t dealt with on Foursquare. I think many of them are coming from the Twitter friend finder — probably from people who are following me but that I’m not following back or that I’ve never interacted with. I don’t want to be rude by rejecting them, but I’m also not sure I want someone I’ve never even chatted with to know exactly where I am. I’m about to move to a new city all by myself; the last thing I need is that one creepy person who takes it a little too far.
Foursquare is an awesome tool w/ many potential uses, but I think it may be a network that is best used to connect with people you’ve already developed some semblance of a relationship with on another social network (rather than it being the place you actually “meet” and develop the relationship like you do on Twitter). Honestly, I think I’ll just continue to let the friend requests build up. That way I don’t have to be rude or worry.
No way. I already have a healthy apprehension about geo-tracking due to my experience in the intel world (joining Foursquare last night notwithstanding), so strangers tracking my physical location, IMHO, is muy dangeroso.
I can see both sides of the argument, but I am firmly on the side of only accepting requests from people I know personally. I do have to say, I stretch this sometimes for people I’ve spoken to online but not IRL, but that’s a very rare exception.
As compensation for keeping this as a closed social network, I’ll tweet when I’m at an event that’s social media related or if I would have posted it on Facebook & commented anyway. That way, I’m sharing socially the locations and events that I want to, but also connecting with my friends via this great application. I think it’s a good balance.
I think this is the major reason for the huge increase in invitations. The problem is, Foursquare doesn’t differentiate between the people you’re following but aren’t following back and the users who are following you as well. I’m much more likely to accept a request from someone I know and follow versus someone who has passively been watching my tweets.
Which, now that I think about it, doesn’t sound safe at all.
Hey Colin, great topic! I love Foursquare because it allows you to take your online friends and meet up with them OFFLINE to connect (a topic of conversation we debated earlier this week here: http://bit.ly/aYVR0L). If I am using Foursquare the way it is intended — to see where my friends are and connect with them (okay, and to rack up badges) — why would I want to clutter up my stream with people I don’t know and who live in other cities? To me, the purpose of Foursquare is totally different than the purpose of Twitter. Anybody read that Dunbar report that was being circulated earlier this week about your sphere of influence being with 150 people? In 2010, I am all about STREAMLINING to control the clutter and noise. There are people who just want to brag about their large following but their numbers are useless and then there are those who would rather have quality over quantity. I’m pitching my tent in the Camp Quality. Who’s with me?!
I am glad you brought this up Colin. I have been struggling with this myself and I actually went through and cleaned out my Foursquare friends list the other day. Yes, I do want the chance to meet people that I follow via social media but I live in Dallas — is there a reason I should be friends with someone in Montana? No.
The privacy issue will keep coming up and although I love getting the chance to see people around town and going to places I may not know about, I am still aware of where I am checking in and how many times I am doing it.
@Alyssa: You also brought up a great point. I always try and look at the person’s Facebook and Twitter profile before I even think about pushing accept.
I friend everyone. I thought Foursquare was a game. The thought that someone, even a friend, would see where I am and head over there is just plain weird. I used it as a game and to discover new things in the city. I never saw a problem with it.
But if people are using it to go to the places where I check in while I’m there to meet me, that’s just waaaaaaaaaay to weird for me. Even if they are my friends. I’ve closed my account. I guess I’m just not that social.
It would make more sense to connect with your Gmail Contacts, Outlook/Exchange Contacts than Twitter Followers. I wish they would just take this off (Twitter Finder). It makes sense to connect using the Twitter Finder through most apps but Location Based Apps could probably go without.
Colin, I have quite a few pending requests as well from folks outside of Dallas. One of the big benefits of location-based networks such as foursquare is the opportunity to create a micro-community of those you may be most interested in. Personally, I’ve just started ignoring them.
I can see however that for #sxswi this could be valuable.
I will admit guilt as far as using the Twitter Finder function when I first signed up. Then I realized I didn’t care that a random in Sacramento was still in love with his corner Starbucks.
I don’t mind friending someone that requests me if they’re in Dallas or another city I would frequent on a normal basis. I like to see where people in my area like to visit over and over again — especially if it’s a place I’ve never visited. Plus it’s a good way to keep tabs on what’s trending in the city.
I like what @cgawley had to say about connecting with your Outlook or Gmail contacts first. That would be a lot better.
I think it’s only a matter of time before someone gets robbed or vandalized because of Foursquare. It happened on Facebook and Twitter — some people just don’t see the danger in oversharing until it’s too late.
For me, adding people I don’t know in other cities would help in case I ever go there. For example, if I’m following someone in LA, when I go out there, I can look at where they frequent and maybe find out about some locations that I never would have heard about before. And I find that to be beneficial. Even in my own city, it’s nice to see where people go, maybe it’s the new hot spot! Who knows? Of course there’s the privacy risk, and that’s always going to be a concern. But it’s just like everything else on the internet, someone’s going to ruin it at some point. I think that if you’re accepting completely random requests from someone that you’ve never had interactions with, then that is a bad idea. But if it is someone you’ve been interacting with and feel comfortable then it’s no big deal
I agree… I have a feeling most of the requests are coming from Twitter. But, I’ve noticed a major uptick since I’ve been cross posting my foursquare checkins to Twitter & Facebook.
Abby, thank you for the comment! I do think I’m leaning towards keeping the network free of people I don’t yet know… we’ll see though.
I do like that approach, although there are many social media contacts who I talk with regularly (and trust), but don’t yet have an e-mail address for.
Personally, I like to be pretty open with my network (I have several reasons for this, which I may do a future post on), but it would be nice to have a network that is JUST for friends / family and people I know IRL. Good luck with your streamlining!
There’s an interesting idea that @valerie brings up below, which I’ve thought about before as well re: following someone in another city / state. If you travel frequently, you may want to know where contacts in other cities are hanging out, so that when you’re in town, it’s easier to get together with them. Probably not the best reason, but it’s an interesting thought.
I wouldn’t want people to just “show up” where I am. But if they saw I was some place, and they pinged me first? That would be pretty cool. Thanks for the comment!
SXSW is going to be ridiculous for location based apps. Gowalla in particular, I think.
I agree… someone’s going to find a way to exploit it to the detriment of another user. I wonder what kinds of safety mechanisms Foursquare could put into place to help prevent against this?
Thanks Valerie! I agree that the idea of being “in the know” for other cities is an interesting concept. It may not be enough of a reason to be open with your network, but it’s still a cool idea.
That is very true. I have accepted a few requests from cities I do travel to from time to time but if I don’t know someone, don’t follow them on Twitter and don’t think I will be in their city anytime soon, then I usually press ignore. Pressing ignore makes me feel so bad though. They need to come up with a better name for it like, Not now thanks — maybe later…
This was such a timely post for me! I just signed up for Foursquare a couple of weeks ago and recently started getting the random friend requests. I link my Foursquare to my personal Twitter account and some of my friends that are not active in social media thought it was creepy how I was broadcasting where I was on the weekends. I totally understand their points and definitely see the potential dangers in location-based mobile apps. I don’t, however, have any hesitations in ignoring friend requests from people in other cities. I don’t understand why someone in Connecticut cares where I am, and I surely don’t care that he’s at the public library yet again.
It will be interesting to see if/when Foursquare and Gowalla implement safety measures on their apps to prevent any future misuse and harmful consequences from occurring.
You can tell you’re from the South, Chevis! You always show that Southern politeness even when ignoring a potential stalker!
Would you give your phone number to a total stranger? I don’t mean that rhetorically. You might be perfectly comfortable with it.
It’s worth considering because, location issues aside, friending on Foursquare does exactly that.I can pull the profile of anyone marked as Friend and see buttons for Text, Email, and Call. And they work.
Hey… I’m from the north, and I’d like that option too! I do feel bad pressing the “ignore” button.
Very good point, you’ve done that to me several times!
We do need to finally meet IRL, btw.
Or you can just let the world follow you where you go, and call them out as “stalkers” when need be.. Keep it real and transparent. Privacy is so last year.
Colin, great article and I agree re your points about lack of innovation at LinkedIn. Can’t add much to the discussion as it’s been pretty well covered in the comments. I’ve gotten great results from LinkedIn over the years from speaking gigs to job opportunities.
I was more motivated to comment on the photo that accompanies this post. Don’t know why they have the $200 fine listed as if death wasn’t enough of a deterrent from touching the wires, lol.
Hah! I know, right? I got a kick out of the photo too. Thanks for commenting!
This is true, LinkedIn can serve as a good “touch point”. I think I get more value out of a service like Twitter for that purpose though. Thanks for dropping by!
Personally, I use foursquare as a game that helps me explore restaurants in the area. Almost all of the people I follow I have not met IRL. I gennerally request to follow the mayor of a place I like, of if someone left a positive about a place and when I go to the restaurant they liked and I agree, I will start to follow them. I also Follow People who oust me as mayor, as they probably go to places that I would like to go. Using this technique, I have found several restaurants (and a few new fave’s) in the DFW area that I would not have stumbled upon otherwise. The problem I found was that my twitter followers, and friends on facebok aren’t on foursquare and they started to ‘unfollow’ as they weren’t playing the game. My fix to this was to create a twitter account for foursquare i.e. @Foodie_Chris.
Since @Foodie_Chris is not my normal twitter account and therefore I am relatively unknown (well I guess after this post it won’t be too hard to figure out who I am) all the people I play foursquare with also see this twitter account, there is no one who know’s me or follows my regular twitter account that know me as @foodie_Chris to know who I am. (Okay that felt a little bit like a line from I Love Lucy!). What that means is all of my followers (presently) and all the people @Foodie_Chris folows are people playing foursquare.
Admitedly, there was one occasion where I had reservations at a restaurant I regularly frequent, and three hours before I got there someone from my friends list on foursquare was there as well. Turns out, there was a social media club event going on, and had I paid more attention to my twitter, I would have know that before I walked in. It was a little odd, but since I am the Mayor at this restaurant, I am not going to feel bad about it, as one should expect me to walk in to a place where I am the mayor, and frankly this person goes to enough of the same places I frequent that eventually going to run into them, foursquare or no, and probably already have and didn’t realize it.
At the begining of this year, my wife and I took a brief trip down to Austin, I looked on foursquare (& Gowalla) and found restaurants near our hotel that were absolutely fabulous! we avoided all chain restaurants the entire trip, and had a wonderfull time.
Last week, I had business downtown Ft. Worth, turns out I haven’t been there in 7 years and things have changed a lot, I found a few cool bars (that I added — and got cool points for), checked in at the Water Gardens — an amazing place (reminder: take wifey to Water Gardens) and in all fairness, I was more worried about getting robbed because of where I parked on the street, than because someone I follow/follow’s me might pop into the pup I found to have a drink.
If the real purpose of foursquare is to get out and explore the city, as I think it is. Then the only way you are really going to get to explore the city/get out of your comfort zone/try something new, is if you accept requests from people you don’t know, in fact as I write this I am thinking it might not be a bad idea to only follow people you don’t know. I mean really, you know who your firends are, you go places with them anyway, you don’t need to follow them, in fact THAT seems a little creepy to me.
No wait, that may be a bit hard. I have a friend on foursquare I know IRL lives down in Houston, and like me is not a 20something but also like me is a bit of an extrovert and also like me, trying to get a handle on how social media can help me/him. Let me explain…
On twitter I started to follow and talk to some of the same tweetfolk he talks to and it is because of him that I even know about foursquare, and otherwise would not be playing the game. I am probably better plugged in to the whole social Media thing in Houston than I am in Dallas because of it. I have been invited to their ‘tweetups’ where they schedule an event and only X # of seeats are available for these like minded ‘stranges’ to meet each other.
I might go to an event like that, as I am an extrovert and would prefer to have this discussion at a bar, or on the street, or at a table, with a person I can speak to face to face where I can see their reaction and get an honest feel for their reaction as opposed to in my bathrobe at my desk in my office at home LOL.
But seriously, if you want to find new places to go, your not going to get there going to the places youve always gone. Likewise how are you going to find out about new places in your area if you don’t listen to the people
who are going there?
Woried about Stalker Ex? Play Foursquare with a dummy account, it doesn’t take much to change your twitter account associated with foursquare, and costs a hell of a lot less than changing your phone number.
Too many random people pinging you from out of town? Then you can turn off their push notifications.
Too many people pinging you period? Turn off all push notifications.
You happen to be in MmmWherever and want to visit LibraryGuy? even if push notifications are off, you can still see who is in town as you are now in MmmWherever and your home town will list the people you normally follow as out of town.
Hope my perspective helped.
P.S. As far as how this is going to affect SXSWi? It’s going to take a better man than I to answer that question.
Thanks for the great comment Chris! I think the way you use Foursquare is pretty interesting. I’ve mostly used Foursquare as a discovery engine through Twitter. When I see someone I know check in at a place I haven’t been to yet, I’ll make a mental note to check it out sometime. I’d really like to see more local businesses leveraging Foursquare. I have to say though, I’m surprised people unfollowed you for your Foursquare check-ins…
Colin, great list. We actually rolled the dice on #67 (create WP plugin) as we had a need to solve and decided to go the extra mile and see what having a plugin page on WordPress.Org would do for us. It has been great as it has brought lots of targeted traffic in the 4 days it has been up there. Of course, I see a handful on the list I have not experimented with and will definitely do so. Thx for sharing.
Interesting post, Colin. As a BIG LinkedIn user, the title scared me. But I see where you’re coming from in terms of “stagnancy.”
I agree with Mr. Swinney on two key areas. As a recruiter, LI has been a great tool. As a job seeker, it has been great as well (found my last TWO positions through LinkedIn communication). I like the fact that I typically get fairly solid information on a person (with respect to his/her background). Where LI fails, in my opinion, is it’s relatively slow rate of response from many users. I’m just now getting replies to invites AND messages that I sent several months ago!
Now, I’ve recently become an “instant gratification” guy. This is where Twitter seems to prevail. I need to greatly increase my following/followers in order to really start seeing the benefits, but I am already beginning to realize what a useful tool it can be. My only dilemma is this: I need to figure out how to feel less “pressured” to write or retweet something every 30 minutes. (I’m hoping that simply educating myself on certain apps will alleviate this pressure.
If LinkedIn doesn’t innovate effectively and at least TRY to keep up with the others, I fear they will go the way of the buffalo. They’ll exist, but will most likely experience slow, minimal growth. I mean, if Friendster is still up, I have to give LI a fighting shot
Thanks for commenting Bret! LinkedIn certainly still has its uses, job seeking and recruiting are two big areas where LI does shine, after all, it is an online vehicle for your resume. They’re definitely trying to keep up with other networks, I’m just not sure that “keeping up” is enough for them. It really opens the door up to competition.
I think that Hubspot got in early on a good idea. Inbound Marketing is the perfect term to describe a whole host of Internet marketing activities that business can use for a variety of purposes. That said, what Hubspot does now, they will have to continue to do just as well (or better) than every other agency out there.
Inbound Marketing doesn’t operate in a bubble. It’s critical that organizations create a demand for their product, service or cause as well as increase awareness of their brand. Dell and Zappos wouldn’t have witnessed their widescale growth without a mix of outbound and inbound marketing. Agencies who can mix both in an effective strategy will be the long term winners.
Nice summary Colin. What we always come back to is strategy — knowing who your customers are and what they want, then understanding how you can deliver the goods. You need to know that for your own customers and, if you’re an agency like we are, you need to understand that for your clients and their customers. If you don’t have that solid base of understanding, it becomes difficult to know what to do in any of the 5 steps.
HubSpot has also fostered a cottage industry that has now grown to become the next trend in marketing agencies. HubSpot had the foresight to acknowledge that a software company will only dilute its efforts by attempting to provide allied services. So they started a Certified Partner program designed to create a team of agencies well-versed and trained in HubSpot software and inbound marketing. Early adopters have been blessed my referrals from HubSpot and from the popularity of inbound marketing, while many advertising and PR firms have been caught flat-footed. Just goes to show you that innovation is contagious.
Thanks for the comment John! You’re absolutely right. Any Inbound or Internet marketing campaign needs to be rooted in a solid strategy if it’s going to be at all effective. I think that’s what I was alluding to with principle #3, but it does need to be more clearly defined given its importance.
That’s really interesting. I didn’t know HubSpot was taking that approach. I agree, it’s a smart idea for them. Do you think the concept of Inbound Marketing as HubSpot has defined it is here to stay? I sometimes wonder if it’s too narrow.
Different organizations may also group responsibilities differently. Team work is best strategy to win the competition.
The value in LinkedIn is LinkedIn Answers and LinkedIn Groups. I consistently get great quality from Answers — by asking for sources, success stories, expertise, etc. Groups is a great way to reach people when you’re organizing an event or to find people to share information with. It’s more in-depth and it tends to be much higher quality than Twitter or Facebook.
–Janet
@Newspapergrl
I agree. I still get value from answers and groups. Thanks for commenting!
Interesting topic Colin. I have definitely been a late adopter to LinkedIn and have used it mostly for aggregating my diverse contacts from college, my old non-social media jobs, my sports blog network, and the people I am meeting in Dallas. For that — as a kind of substitute for keeping business cards — it’s been great.
One thing I’ve heard a lot about, even from people who question LinkedIn’s overall viability as a one-stop-shop social network, is LinkedIn Answers. I have not gotten into this and need to. It sounds like there is a lot of value to be gained.
I think I can distill my counter-argument down to: I can’t be myself on Facebook & Twitter if my entire professional network can watch.…hence, LinkedIn
See, I would argue that your professional persona should be one and the same with your personal persona. And if it isn’t, or you can’t, you’re in the wrong industry. Of course, you do want to practice “smart filtering”, but being yourself in the professional arena opens up new opportunities to connect and network, I’ve found.
I’ve heard the same. I’ve answered a few questions, and should probably spend some more time with that feature myself.
Interesting.
I often use Shazam to verify the name of an unfamiliar song that I encounter in a public place. One of the most common places I’ve tagged music is at the American Airlines Center, as they sample dozens of songs before and during a Mavericks game.
But it never even occurred to me to share that information with my social media community. Thanks for the suggestion.
Watch out world, and remember that it was Colin’s idea.
Thanks for the comment David! Hopefully your social network will appreciate your musical preferences.
Sound, practical, immediately useful steps to take for all bloggers!
#4 is something I practice but I use ReadItLater’s bookmark and then I feed that into my Google Reader. I also throw my twitter favorites into Google Reader. If I’m reading something in Google Reader that I think might be useful, I take the time to tag it w/whatever might be applicable, “blog posts” “useful” “for work”. Just a small snippet of what I do.
I obviously have to automate a lot of my content too because of events/school/work. Automation isn’t the devil, it’s just the devil when it’s not original content or in the form of an Automatic Direct Message on twitter.
Another great way to become a digital collector is to use Delicious when you find an article or post that inspires you. You can tag it with “blogidea” as well as with categories for later posts.
#4 is huge for me too. There are a ton of different ways to do it, but we all parse through too much content in a given day to really be able to recall exactly what we need when we need it. If you’re smart with your digital habits, you can really use these tools to augment your brain. It’s exciting.
Also a very good idea. I did that for a little while, but then got into Evernote when I got the iPhone.
Thanks for dropping by! Glad you enjoyed.
Great stuff — just went through training last week on a similar topic and your post added some very practical ideas.
I’m glad you enjoyed! Thanks for commenting.
Great post! The recycle piece is huge. I actually revived something I wrote 11 years ago for a guest post on a client’s blog! Now that your recommendations highlight this as a best practice, I feel really good about it. (before hand I felt like I plagerized my 20’s version of me!)
I’ve used the Voice Memo app on a couple occasions to record either a famous person or a friend’s incoherent ramblings — then I e-mail the audio to myself, convert to .m4r and hello, new ringtone.
I tried to get Jerry Jones at the SMC Dallas event, but got caught up in the excitement.
I love all this practical advice. I have a blog that I haven’t been great about tending to as it is more of a lifestyle and sexual education blog. It makes it a little tricky when I am out at an event that I want to blog about to keep all the media straight for later. I now, go with a list of the performers and in order that they are to perform so when I take video/pictures it will make it much easier to share. I love the batch processing idea as I use this in my job technically all the time and that is hot on my priority list to do this coming weekend. I have tons of ideas that I have researched and tagged it is just finding the time. Thanks for your post.
I, too, use Shazam, but more so as a “music to buy” list. Whether it’s new music, or music I’ve been meaning to get, I no longer get that overwhelmed feeling at Good Records.
Getting Jerry Jones would have been awesome! That’s a great way to use the Voice Memo app — I’ve done similar things, only would send the audio to my Posterous blog for posting. Seemed to work well.
Thanks for the comment Kristin! That’s another good way to use Shazam. I’ve done that on several occasions, tagged new music to remember to download when I get home.
Thanks Derick! The way I see it, if it hasn’t been published online yet — it’s fair game. And even if it has, posts and ideas need to be updated over time. As long as it still offers value, go for it.
Yes, batch processing is huge. Really amounts to a lot of saved time. I can’t wait to see the new posts!
Yes, batch processing is huge. Really amounts to a lot of saved time. I can’t wait to see the new posts!
Colin,
Check your use of then and than.“You might be a better public speaker then a writer.”
Great ideas. I like the idea of batching. I haven’t utilized that well enough in my blogs. If I worked on them together I think I would be better at implementing blog posts. Thanks.
Thanks for the feedback Shaune. Good luck experimenting with batching!
HUbspot had only proven that they can be one of the best and compete with others
Nice bundles. Thanks for sharing them!
Good tips Colin. Batch processing is very useful, unless you need to write about breaking news and events. I find Google Reader and ReadLater/Instapaper to be useful to collect digital material. For iPhone, I use NewsRack.
Effective time management is the most important factor here. Unless you dedicate some quality time to blog on a regular basis, there are plenty of other digital distractions which can keep you away from blogging.
Thanks for another useful post, Colin. And, great to know that you’re watching what we’re doing with @mobilisms. I’ll let the team know that the pressure is officially on to keep the content sharp and relevant.
Congrats on joining the movement! I can’t wait to hear about the adventures.
Sidenote: At 1:50 in the vid, is that Rob Zombie with the SLR?
This whole project seems like a blast. Let me know if I can do anything to help. I’m a Producer for a video production company in Dallas so I might be able to help out with the video challenge.
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