Twitter Lists

Twitter has rolled out Twitter Lists for organizing the people you follow into manageable lists.  Announced a few weeks ago and still in beta, the feature enables Tweeters to create both public and private lists of people they are following.

Twitter Lists: A Welcome New Feature

As we wrote a while back, as you follow more and more people on Twitter, it can be difficult to keep up with your friends and favorite tweeters.  The Twitter List feature allows users to create both public and private lists from their followers list.

While @DallasMarketing is not included in the beta, we have tried out the new feature on an account that did receive the invite and anxiously await the arrival of the new feature for the Twitter masses.

How do Twitter Lists Work?

If you were invited to participate in the Twitter Lists beta, upon logging in to your Twitter account, you will see a banner announcing the new feature.

Twitter Lists are created simply by clicking on the “Create A New List” button, naming the list and then designating it as public or private.

Next, you add some tweeps to the list.  For us, we envision a buddy list that is private for friends and family and then some public lists on our favorite topics – marketing and social media, of course.

Other Twitter List Features

Under Search, a list of your Twitter lists has been added.

Next to the “following” and “followers” numbers a new “listed” count has been added to display how many Twitter lists you have been added to.

When viewing someone else’s Twitter page, clicking on the Listed link displays tabs showing the (public) Twitter Lists following that user and another tab showing which Twitter Lists that user is following.

Another Twitter popularity contest?  Noted.  But, overall, Twitter Lists will enhance the tweeting process and make engaging with like-minded others a much simpler task.

sezWho, who had aspired to be the universal profile service for social media sites, has called it quits.   Following in the footsteps of other recent social media sites, such as Furl, sezWho sent eMails to users stating:

We wish all those at sezWho the best as they move on to other endeavors.

A new study shows that marketers are slowly making the transition to social media marketing with 63% stating they will increase their social media marketing spend in 2009.

clipped from www.emarketer.com

Let’s talk about budgets.
It took a while.

Even though tens of millions of users were flocking to social media sites every day, most marketers stayed away. They either didn’t understand how to join the conversations—without sounding like shills—or they were frightened away by the prospect of associating their brands with questionable content.

But things are changing.

Companies are learning how to leverage social media and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter.

According to the “The ROI on Social Media Marketing” report by Aberdeen Group, sponsored by Visible Technologies, marketers have developed the tools and methodologies to drive marketing ROI by listening to and learning from customers and prospects.

The money is following the methods.

Aberdeen found that 63% of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.

Are you engaging with social media brand evangelists?

“Companies use multiple approaches to identify the individuals who wield the greatest amount of influence in any given topic area and to track changes in their influence over time,” said Jeff Zabin of Aberdeen. “Best-in-class companies engage these top influencers as brand evangelists, and then track the impact of their words and actions in terms of return on marketing investment.”

eMarketer estimates that social network advertising alone will rise over 17% this year to $2.35 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008.

WeFollow is a new user powered Twitter directory by Digg’s Kevin Rose.  With a sleek interface and #hashtag directory, it is catching on fast.

Add Yourself to the We Follow Twitter directory

We Follow lists the most popular Twitterers by categories created with #hashtags.   Adding yourself is simple:  Sign in to your Twitter account, visit WeFollow, click on the “Add Yourself to WeFollow” button

then simply add 3 hashtags that describe you or your Twitter topics.

What, pray tell, is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a way to create groups of content on Twitter - they function like tags on other social media sites, like Flickr.  So, when you tweet, if you are speaking about the subject of marketing, and you use the word marketing, add a #hashtag – #marketing – to add additional context and metadata to the tweet.

#hashtag.org tracks tweets by hashtags in real time, so check it out too.  This is a great way to find others to follow with similar interests.  Looking for tweets on Dallas?  Here’s the Dallas tweet directory on #hashtags.org.

Dallas Marketing Services is a marketing blog
published by Seven Aspens Consulting

Update: Ma.Gnolia was a public social bookmarking service that closed at the end of January, 2009. You can learn more about the history of what happened to Gnolia in the Citizen Garden podcast.

Social bookmarking site, Ma.gnolia, puts the social in social bookmarking providing an online venue to “Discover, Share and Discuss the best of the web.”

Once signed in, set up your profile with an About You blurb, home page URL and image/avatar.  Next, stop by your preferences to establish your privacy settings.  If you’d like to add your Ma.gnolia activity to your blog, check out the  Blog Tools.

Ma.gnolia Social Bookmarking

Bookmarks Anywhere

Keeping your bookmarks on a website allows you to access your favorite websites from anywhere. Your bookmarks are available and always backed up no matter which computer you use.

Find Stuff Other People Like

And even better, you can see what other people have found and share bookmarks with your friends. Bookmarks can be kept private, but most are public and available for everyone to see. See who has the same interests as you!

Find the Best of Web through People, not Machines

In social bookmarking, you only find the bookmarks that other people think are worth keeping. Ma.gnolia ratings and tags instantly give you an idea of what people think of a bookmark, making your web searches more informed than ever. It’s like having a community of assistants help you find what you need, when you need it

Ma.gnolia Add-ons

♦ LinkRoll Generator:  Shows a live roll of your Ma.gnolia bookmarks on your blog or website.

♦ TagRoll Generator:  Displays a live roll of your Ma.gnolia tags on your blog or website

♦ Ma.gnolia Marker:  Allows Mac users to bookmark right from the Dashboard

♦ Button Generator:  Genenerates a   button linking to Ma.gnolia.com, Ma.gnolia signup, your bookmarks or one of your Ma.gnolia groups.

♦ Ma.gnolia Roots:  This is really cool. connects you with the Ma.gnolia community as you browse the web.  Simply drag the red Roots banner to your links or bookmarks bar, then head out to any site on the web and click the Roots symbol. A pop-up window appears displaying what the Ma.gnolia community thinks of that site.   Find out more at the Roots Screencast.  Very cool and you can even use Roots with Chrome .

“It’s sort of a cross between Facebook, a blog and Squidoo.”
– Seth Godin

In anticipation of the October launch of his new book, Tribes, master marketer Seth Godin created Triiibes, an invitation-only community this summer.   Those receiving an invitation were required to pre-purchase the book to gain access to the online community of marketers, which is created on the Ning platform.

Although there was much anticipation that Triiibes would be opened to additional members when the book launched last week, it appears the Tribe has spoken and decided to keep it private.   A new message has appeared on the Triiibes login screen stating:

This network is by invitation for the foreseeable future. If you were advised that we’d be opening it one day, it seems as though we won’t… the triiibe voted to keep it closed for now. I’m sorry. If you have an invitation, click the link in the email to join.

Since we have had inquiries about how to join Triiibes, we decided to provide a little insight to what lies behind the Triiibes walls.

What the Tribe does on Triiibes

Inspire. Illuminate.  Innovate.

Triiibes members can set up a personal Triiibes Page with an image, photos, URL, extra text, third-party widgets and personal information which includes answering various questions like “Do you lead a tribe? Tell us about who you lead?”

Triiibes members can also review their latest activity, check in on Triiibes friends, access Triiibes groups, and check out the Triiibes job board.   As of this post, there are 3694 Triiibes members.

What’s Next on Triiibes?

We check in on Triiibes each day and will post an update if membership opens again.

In the mean time, check out the Tribes book – it is short and a good read and here’s a video of the Triiibe – by my count, I’m picture 77.

Find more videos like this on Triiibes

Squidoo is a collection of over 700,000 pages created by users about whatever they want the world to know – ideas, recommendations, interests, instructions – basically any topic that they know or care about.

Squidoo was founded by marketer, Seth Godin, in 2005 and is a free service where users, called lensmasters, select a topic and then create and publish a single page called a lens, which can be enhanced with photos, videos, links, feeds, articles, lists and text to support their efforts.

The pages are monetized with ads and items from Amazon, eBay or CafePress and the proceeds, if any, are split between Squidoo (45%), charity (5%) and the lensmaster (50%).  The lensmaster has the option of keeping their cut of the proceeds or donating it to one of a long list of charities (we chose the ASPCA).

Getting started:  Register with Squidoo and create a profile.  The profile includes a photo, bio, ability to add numerous links to blogs and websites (yours and those you recommend), and a list your favorite Squidoo lenses.

The Squidoo Lens:  Each lensmaster can create as many lenses as they wish and are encouraged to do so by Squidoo.   When completed, the lens is listed in one of 30 categories, tagged with key words, and if you’d like a copy, it can be easily exported with the click of a button.  Notification of the completed lens can be Tweeted with a click of a button.

Here’s our recently created lens called:

The Marketing Equation:  Time + Money + Skill = Marketing Success

Business Use:  If you read our lens content (recommended), we mingled content with self-promotion.   Squidoo lenses index well with search engines and can create traffic to your website  so, as we mentioned in our lens – here’s one of those free marketing opportunities and the only cost is your time in setting it up, so give it a try!

Have a few links, photos or quotes you’d like to share with the world, but not really a lot to say? Then tumble on over to Tumblr and easily express yourself with your own tumblelog.

Tumblelogs vs. Blogs:  Tumblelogs are short, mixed-media posts where words are few and photos, quotes, links, music and videos, with or without text or captions, rule the day.  Many of Tumblr’s tumblelogs are wordless; just a pictorial representation of the Tumblr’s take on the world.  While text can be used, explore Tumblr and you will quickly find that most text is limited to one or two lines.

Ever have a bullet-point boss (wouldn’t read anything beyond the bullet points)?  Definitely hook them up with Tumblr.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a free, extremely easy-to-use platform created by David Karp who is 21 and has a goal for Tumblr to reach one million Tumblrs by the end of 2008.   Yeah, 21 (great article on David Karp).

Tumblr Exploration:  On Tumblr, you can explore today’s Tumblr posts (there’s 160K+ at the time of this post), check out what is on the Tumblr radar (interesting Tumblr tumblelogs), explore the Tumblverse, find Colorful Tumblrs, stop by Tumblr Music and even check out The Tumblettes.

Getting started: As Tumblr states, you can sign up in 10 seconds.  You will then be taken through a short introduction task session or you can venture out on your own and begin customization of your Tumblr tumblelog.

Tumblr Customization options

Info: Create a title for your tumblelog, a description, upload an image, and decide whether to keep the provided Tumblr sub-domain address (ex: DallasMarketing.tumblr.com) or map a custom URL to your Tumblr account.

Theme: Next, choose from one of the 12 themes for your Tumblr tumblelog and add custom CSS if you are so inclined.

Appearance:  If your selected theme allows it, colors for items such as background, title, text, links, etc. can be changed in Appearances without requiring CSS to do so.

Feeds: Add RSS feeds from up to 5 other sites to your Tumblr page.  Choices include Links only, Links with summaries, Text without titles or just photos.

Advanced: (Not really that advanced – be sure and set these) Set your time zone, post count, various display options and Directory options including:  Allow search engines to index your tumblelog, ping the blogosphere, promote your tumblelog on Tumblr and add your location (to the Tumblverse).

Expand your Tumblr knowledge

Tumblr Help provides FAQs, stop by the Tumblr Staff tumblelog to catch what’s new on Tumblr, and visit Tumblr Goodies for added functionality.

The first word that comes to mind with Issuu is “awesome.”  Issuu is a free online publishing site that allows users to convert documents into interactive online publications and then embed the documents into websites or blogs.   The document is presented in an interface so realistic it feels as if you are thumbing through a magazine or glossy brochure.

Here is a document we put together to try out Issuu… click on the document for the expanded view.

Imagine the possibilities: Transform product literature, fact sheets, brochures, training manuals, annual reports and other printed business materials into elegant, interactive documents.

Getting started: Sign up and create a profile with a description, image and website and blog links. You can explore documents published by the Issuu community, make some friends, learn more about Issuu for business use or read the Issuu blog.

Publishing documents:  Issuu requires all documents to be uploaded in .pdf format. If you already have a brochure in a .pdf format, give the process a try by clicking on “Upload A Document,” completing the document information and then submitting.

Once uploaded, click on the document to ensure it looks as expected, then click on the drop down on the lower right hand corner to get the code for embedding the document into a web page or blog.  It’s that simple.

But wait, I’m not a graphics person…You can create some attractive documents with tools you probably already have.  If you have Microsoft Word and a photo editor, give this a try.

Create a new Microsoft Word document and change all the margins to 0.   In a photo or graphics program, create a layout that measures 817 pixels X 1056 pixels, which should be the same as one page in your Word document.   When you have your image/page complete, save it and then go into Word and Insert the picture. Create a page break and repeat for the next page.  When you are finished, convert the Word document to a PDF and your are ready to upload.  If you do not have a .pdf converter, check the Issuu FAQs for suggestions.