Friday, December 31, 2010

10 Twitter Backup Tools For Preserving Tweets

With the new year quickly approaching, now might be a good time to archive all of your tweets for 2010. You wouldn’t want to lose any of your tweets, or have something happen to your account in 2011 that would cause you to lose a year (or more) worth of tweets, replies, DMs and favorites. Anything could happen and with Twitter accounts being hacked on a daily basis, it’s a smart and safe idea to backup and archive your tweets as often as possible. In case of any emergency, I’m sure that one of the services below is bound to come in handy!

Tweetstream

Tweetstream not only backs up your tweets, it lets you “preserve all of your important Twitter info and uses the data to make you more efficient, effective and prominent to your followers.” Your tweets will be searchable, customizable and exportable. So, you will be able to download your data to your computer via FTP, Amazon S3, Dropbox (coming soon), PDF (coming soon) and more.

Tweetstream has both a free and premium account type. The premium account is normally $25/year, but if you sign up before January 3rd you can get it for only $5/year. You really can’t beat that price.

BackupMyTweets

BackupMyTweets lets you archive 3200 (due to Twitter limitations) of your most tweets. The tool also offers daily backups and the ability to search through your tweets. If you’re looking to backup your email, blog or photos, there are tools for that as well (BackupMyMail, BackupMyBlog, Backupmy Pics).

BackupMyTweets currently only offers a free account (it’s free as long as you’re willing to let it send out an automatic tweet of your choice from your account). They are, however releasing a Premium Edition in the near future. The price of that will be $9.95/year, but if you pre-order right now you can get it for $4.95/year.

TweetBackup

TweetBackup is powered by Backupify, a popular service that backups and archives all of your Google apps and various social media data. TweetBackup is free and includes daily backups, exporting and hashtag archiving. Tweetback also has a 3200 tweet limitation, though some users have claimed that they can see more tweets in their archive.

The downside to TweetBackup is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to search through your tweets at the moment. Also, the service is very basic and does not seem to be 100% complete. For instance, there is a “restore” tab (for restoring Twitter accounts) yet it states that you cannot use this feature because the Twitter API does not allow it. Backupify is actually a better choice if you’re looking for something more feature-rich; it supports Twitter along with a handful of other services.

The Archivist

The Archivist is a Windows desktop application that lets you “archive tweets for later data-mining and analysis.” You can search, save, export and visualize your tweets all with this efficient desktop tool. If you are a Mac user or just do not want to download the application, you can try out the Web version.

With the Web interface you can view archives for any search term (keyword, username, hashtag, etc). You’re then presented with stylish, colorful charts and graphs that you can click on for a more in-depth view of how that term has been used on Twitter.

Twistory

Twistory definitely has a unique approach to Twitter archiving. With it you can “add your Twitter backlog feed to your favorite calendar application and browse through your personal Twitter diary.” Your Twitter account has to be public in order for Twistory to work. It’s is not just a great tool for archiving your tweets, it’s also an instant organizer since all of your tweets are displayed on the date that you created them.

While Twistory also only backs up 3200 tweets, with a Twitter Pro account (coming soon) you can backup all of your tweets. By adding Twistory to your calendar, you can also search through them using your calendar’s search feature as well as have your archive automatically update on a regular basis.

TweetScan

TweetScan calls itself “the most complete Twitter backup available.” You can choose to create a full archive or simply choose which items that you’d like to backup (tweets, friends, DMs, replies, followers, favorites). They say that only your last 1000 items will be downloaded from Twitter. You will then get a zip folder of your tweets to save to your computer.

The zip folder contains your tweet in both CSV and HTML format. The HTML format is great because once it loads in your browser you can: search through your tweets; view your friends, followers, DMs and favorites; add notes and tags.

TweetGuard

TweetGuard was reviewed here at Blogging Tips a few months ago. It’s a free, handy tool that will backup your Twitter account on a daily basis. You can also export your data in CSV or XML format. Tweets, messages, favorites and friends are organized into tabs for easy viewing. You can also search through your tweets.

TwitterBackup

TwitterBackup is a very simple tool that “downloads all your tweets and stores them in XML format. The document type is identical to Twitter’s API.” While I haven’t tried the tool myself, I have heard many positive reviews about it (as you can see from the comments on the linked page).

Tweetbook

Tweetbook is another unique tool that differs from the basic text archiving format. What Tweetbook does is generate a PDF eBook of your latest tweets, replies and favorites. You can also choose to create an XML backup file as well.

If you’re looking for another Twitter backup tool for creating PDF files, you may want to try MyTwebo. You can actually combine multiple Twitter users into a single PDF archive file. The service is also 100% free with unlimited backups and customization options.

TweetSaver

TweetSaver is your Twitter lifesaver; it archives your tweets along with your favorites. You can also search through and tag your tweets to make them easier to find. A unique feature that I found on TweetSaver is that they allow you to share your archived tweets on various social networks with the click of a button.

TweetSaver does not have a free account type, but they do offer a 7-day free trial. There are four accounts to choose from: monthly $5.00; yearly $30.00; TweetBlast-monthly $3.00; TweetBlast-yearly $15.00. To learn more about the differences between each plan be sure to check out their pricing page.

If those aren’t enough or you still have found the perfect tool, here are 8 more options available for archiving your tweets and Twitter data.

Which tool do you prefer?

Blogging Success Summit 2011

If you’re looking to take your blogging up a notch in 2011 with some great training then you’ll want to check out Blogging Success Summit 2011.

This is a completely online/virtual event and it is currently 50% off (a limited time early bird rate). It includes teaching from 23 successful bloggers including:

Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra
Scott Monty (head of social media, Ford)
Brian Clark (Copyblogger)
Debbie Weil (author, The Corporate Blogging Book)
Douglas Karr (co-author, Corporate Blogging for Dummies)
experts from McDonald’s, Cisco, Southwest Airlines, Sony, and Procter & Gamble
Joe Pulizzi (co-author, Get Content Get Customers)
Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing)
Jay Baer (co-author, The Now Revolution)
Chris Garrett (co-author, ProBlogger)
Dave Garland (author, Smarter, Faster, Cheaper)
Mike Volpe (VP of marketing, HubSpot)
Rick Calvert (CEO, BlogWorld)
Michael Stelzner (Social Media Examiner)

I’m also presenting in a session with Brian Clark and Chris Garrett.

The Summitt is spread out over four weeks in February (starting 1st Feb) and because it is all online you can either attend the sessions live or get access to all the recordings to listen to at your own pace.

You also get a whole heap of added extra bonuses if you sign up as an early bird (an extra 17 sessions of recordings).

This summit is put on by Michael Stelzner and his team who have previously run some other great social media summits which have always had very positive reviews. As usual he offers a 2 day ‘sample it’ guarantee (you get access to the first two days to see if it is a good fit for you).

So if you’re looking to take your blog to the next level in 2011 and want to kick things off with a bang – sign up today for Blogging Success Summit 2011.

95% of Twitter Accounts Created Since January 2009

From the “Did You Know?” category comes the statistic claimed by a report from Sysomos that says that 95% of the current Twitter accounts were created after January of 2009. So for you folks who had your claim before that time you were officially ‘way ahead of the curve’ to one degree or another. Here is chart that shows this growth. (Thanks to PCMag for bringing this to our attention).

Of course, I always want to know just how many of these accounts are placeholders to protect from Twitter handle squatters or names of small businesses who are still thinking about getting involved but that’s for another time.

The Sysomos report also showed some interesting charts relating to a variety of element in Twitter that are being utilized much more today.

One of my favorites was this one.

It’s Twitter’s version of the 80/20 rule. That rule says that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. In Twitter terms it’s the 90/20 rule where 90% of tweets come from about 20% of the users. Of course, this says nothing about the value of the tweets or if they are bot generated so while it’s a fun thing to look at the real value lies in determining which of that 20% are real people and provide real value.

Check out the study to make your own call as to whether Twitter is a vast wasteland of nothingness or a platform for action.

Will There Be 50% More Vacant Cubicle Space at Myspace Due to Layoffs?

It never feels good to write about this kind of thing around the new year but if there is one thing about writing about business one learns that it can be heartless at times.

Myspace, the perpetually troubled former social networking high flyer, is reportedly looking into the possibility of laying off up to to 50% of its existing staff of 1,000 employees. Liz Gannes from the NetworkEffect at All Things Digital reports:

While the decision of what cuts to make to its employee base have not been made yet, nearly the entire Myspace staff was given the last week of December off from work to save money.

Sources stressed that management was still working out the details of more drastic cost-cutting measures that owner News Corp. has been wanting from Myspace, as its revenues and traffic growth have declined.

The layoffs are also part of a larger rethink about the future of the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based company, which has had many difficulties in recent years. That has included several upheavals in its leadership and a talent drain, as well as stagnant growth.

Myspace has continued to get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror of the frontrunner in the social space, Facebook, and that trend doesn’t seem to be letting up. Couple this continued decline in Myspace overall with the rise of microblogging (Twitter), location based services (Foursquare) and daily deal monster (Groupon) that are grabbing headlines every day and Myspace looks more and more like social networking footnote.

I have never really given Myspace a fair shake personally. When it was hot I simply didn’t care about social media. Now that social media is all the rage and there is value coming out of it, what Myspace is offering around music is just not where I fit. As a result, I haven’t truly watched the social network deteriorate like many readers may have.

Along those lines, it would be interesting if anyone who uses Myspace in its present form would tell us in the comments as well as those who once were Myspace users but have moved on to other things.

Once again, while these layoffs are rumored by sources this is a very bad signal for anyone related to the company. Not the way to be starting a new year for sure.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Newark, NJ Mayor REALLY Uses Twitter To Help People

Time and time again we try to figure out just what Twitter is good for. We talk about business applications and other ways it can help people. We hear some nice stories but we also are subject to the kind of online activism that is often much more hollow than actually active.

Well, this past few days of blizzard conditions in the Northeast have provided some interesting political histrionics that have shown the good, the bad and the ugly of the political landscape. It has shown how the best and the worst in people come out in times of crisis. I had to laugh at an article in the New York Daily News telling New Yorkers to stop whining. Being a native of NJ and spending a lot of time in the city that one had me chuckling.

One story is emerging from all of this, however, shows what the combination of Twitter, social media savviness and the desire to help can do. And frankly, it is inspiring. The mayor of Newark, NJ, Cory Booker has been using Twitter to chronicle his street level efforts to help the people he has been voted to govern. He is helping people get help in a true time of need and all the while making a political star shine brighter (a win / win). He has taken this chance to possibly set a bar so high for public officials that it can’t be matched (especially because it requires being in shape, being mobile and apparently giving a crap!).

TechDirt reports

He’s been tweeting up a storm, as he travels around Newark helping to plow streets and dig out cars and help people in trouble. As you look down the thread, he’s specifically responding to different people calling out for help — either sending people to help or showing up himself, such as the case of the woman who was stuck in her home and needed diapers, which the mayor brought himself.

The TechDirt write up also talks about how he handled someone who was angry but also not doing the right thing. It’s a classic. Here is an example of his tweet stream still today.

I don’t know this guy’s politics other than he is a Democrat but what action like this does is actually transcend the artificial barriers we place around people due to ideology and makes people concentrate on the simple word that should be the one we all aspire to in 2011: action.

Was it a publicity stunt? Who cares?! If people were helped then let’s have every PR person and political consultant on the planet take classes in this kind of ‘stunt’. We need ‘stunts’ like this. We need people getting social media like this.

It’s a pretty cool way to help close out 2011 actually. Rather than concentrate on the people who use Twitter in the most superficial way let’s take a look at someone who did something with it that had some real clout. This guy gets it in a way that others need to as well.

I have a soft spot for Newark, NJ. Growing up in NJ it was the big, nasty city that you only went to to get on a plane or have your train speed through it. It always felt like there was unrealized potential. Recently a friend of mine said the following on Facebook

At The Pru Center for Nets v Hawks. Wish I had a zillion bucks, because I’d buy Newark and treat it right. Such a beautiful and sad city.

That made me think. Now, as a result of Mayor Booker’s efforts I am thinking some more. I am thinking that maybe it’s not a zillion bucks that are needed to help but rather people who care like Cory Booker and a way to truly connect them like Twitter.

Here’s to an action filled 2011 and more people truly ‘getting it’.

Foursquare Retail Checkins Up During Holiday

I will say that one of the hardest things to do when writing a post is to get all of the pertinent information in the headline. There are some days where I feel like I am feeding the machine with headlines like this since there are many people who don’t read these posts but just shuttle them on with retweets (Can you believe that people would do that in this day and age of such reliable information? ).

Well today’s data comes from AdAge and Foursquare by way of the SAI Chart of the Day. Here’s the information.

So why was I wondering if this may not be monumental as it appears? That’s because my question on any data showing percentage changes is always what was the original number? How many people were checking in? Early stage companies love to show percentages because it could hide the fact that when you go from 48 of something happening to 60 of something happening that is a 25% increase in overall activity but the numbers aren’t big enough to get excited about. However, you are perfectly within your rights to show a 25% increase because, well, it is just that. Unfortunately, it tells a bad story.

I ask these things because I experiment with checkins from time to time. Overall, they don’t do much for me because I am just not the right market. I understand these tools but I am not out on the town all the time. So when I am out I like to see just how many people have checked in and I am usually underwhelmed.

A case in point. I was recently at a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game in Raleigh, NC. While a small market, Raleigh is considered to be one of the more tech savvy markets around so you would think that out of about 15,000 fans there would be some “checking in” going on. Well, there were about 20 people who checked in at the RBC Center which represents .0013 (thanks to Eric Anderson catching my earlier poor math) percent of those people at the event who used Foursquare and were interested enough to check in. Better than zero but not much (and admittedly not very scientific but you get the point). I would suspect those numbers would go up at a San Jose Sharks game. Anybody know? I have read that the Washington Redskins used Foursquare this year and they had about a 2.6% checkin rate but there are a lot of questions in that number as well (which I will address in another post – see update below).

The bottom line is this. Foursquare has about 5 million users right now. It is under some serious pressure from Facebook who can muscle in on their territory at scale because of their massive user base. Of course, how many people in that user base actually use new services is a big question I have for Facebook. In fact, I’ll ask here – Has anyone signed up to use the Facebook messaging service? Let us know in the comments.

The bottom line here is that, as always, how we see numbers often skews the importance we place on products and services. If we allow the service provider or the industry to give us the ‘rosy’ picture without questioning just how real the information is then we, as marketers, run the risk of rabbit-trailing and wasting valuable resources on things that may have very limited returns.

Used in the right places with the right businesses who have the right customers and prospects there is no telling where this could go. There is certainIy a market for location based services like Foursqaure. I caution, however, to not let the numbers you see persuade you to do anything until you have done a thorough examination as to whether location based services can do anything at all for your business. Just doing a cannon ball into the deep end without looking may just leave you all wet.

UPDATE: Rather than write a post about how the Washington Redskins used Froursquare and the numbers they generated it looks like a better move to read the post over at the Social Media Examiner. I have a ton of questions about the numbers as you might as well.

Astroturfing: Maybe it’s Not as Bad as it Seems

Astroturfing is defined as the act of creating a false sense of grassroots support. The two most common examples are politics and online reviews. For example, a Senator receives a flood of letters that appear to be a spontaneous response to a political event but the letters are actually from an organized group who will gain something by swaying the vote.

Online, it could be a series of very positive product reviews that seem to come from Average Janes when in reality they were posted by an employee of the company.

Back in September, R2Integrated did a survey on the topic and not surprisingly 87% of the people said they thought companies planted reviews. What’s interesting is that only 35% said it was “highly unethical” and only 9% said they’d stop buying from a company if they found out they were astroturfing. Why that’s particularly fascinating is that the news coverage which followed the survey all leaned heavily on how it proved astroturfing was bad for business. Really? I’m not getting that. Many studies have shown that people trust the reviews of people they know over ones they don’t, so a whole page full of astroturf reviews probably aren’t helping the cause anyway.

Still, there is that old “truth in advertising” issue. That’s why the FTC busted Reverb Communications last year after it was revealed that they were paying people to put positive reviews on their client’s iPhone apps.

But when we look at social media and how we use it to promote products, aren’t we all astroturfing to some extent? Tell me you’ve never hidden behind a fake Twitter account, or an anonymous blog comment. The internet was designed to allow people to be who they want to be at any given moment. Right now, I’m a middle-aged marketing writer but later today I’m going to be a hip, twenty-something who knows all about fashion. Like Hollywood, marketing is about creating an illusion and I don’t see where that’s so bad. (Barring the use for illegal purposes, of course.)

I prefer to see creativity over safe. If I’m drawn in to a clever YouTube video of a ten-year-old doing off-the-cuff movie reviews, then I don’t care if it’s actually been scripted and filmed by a studio.

When it comes to stocking a site with company written reviews, as long as their telling the truth, does it really make a difference if they were paid to write them or not? I say no. What do you say?

Season’s Tweetings: Santa Teaches Social Media Enrichment

Do you follow Santa on Twitter? I don’t, but I imagine him tweeting his way across a city’s rooftops on December 24th like so many metropolitan food trucks. He could use foursquare to check-in for valuable chimney-descending tips or to know what kinds of cookies to expect, but that might ruin the element of surprise.

Regardless, Santa is no different than most of us – save a red jumpsuit and diminutive slave labor – in that he has been changed by social media. If the millennium-old character can keep up with the times, clearly there’s an opportunity for most organizations’ communications to evolve. In fact, social media Santa – or, if you prefer, Rudolph (@RudolphHoHo) or the horrifying Krampus (@MisterKrampus) – can teach brands of any size an important lesson about enrichment through social media.

Enrichment, in this context, is a concept that organizations can add communications dimensions through providing entertainment, information, and other value-adding layers. Enrichment could entail a number of techniques, and @santaNORAD demonstrated how social media can be used in a unique way to enrich a folkloric figure.

Santa tweeted from the rooftops in 2010 with help from NORAD

Why is enrichment important? It’s an opportunity for brands, organizations, retail outlets, entrepreneurs, and others to flesh-out their digital presences. A website may have clever copy or colloquial terms of service agreements (browse around Moosejaw.com for a nice example), but they’re generally static and most often one-way expressions of “personality.” Social media can be two-way enrichment on a daily, hourly, or real-time basis.

Enrichment isn’t a complicated concept – in fact, it’s dead obvious – but it isn’t easy. Just as firms struggle to “add value” through social media, enrichment is no different and no less vague. It might be helpful to review a few diverse examples:

Backcountry.com (@backcountrycom) – the outdoor sports outfitter uses Facebook and Twitter accounts to give audiences updates on snow fall in mountain towns and promote fans’ photos of death-defying conquests. Promotional messages occur regularly, but only to the benefit of its customers:

Backcountry on Facebook

Comedian, actor, writer, and podcaster Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) – with nearly 100,000 followers on Twitter and more than 11,000 Facebook fans/friends, Tompkins uses social media channels as witty extensions of his profession, not simply for promoting his gigs or products:

PFT on Twitter

The ONE Campaign (@ONECampaign) – the “grassroots campaign” aims to galvanize more than 460,000 Twitter followers and 150,000+ Facebook fans by providing cause-related information to those interested in its mission. This includes info driven by those same fans and followers:

The ONE Campaign on Twitter

Of course, I will acknowledge that the use of colloquialisms and engagement is inherently more difficult for certain types of organizations (see: Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco and Firearms), but value-adding through enrichment is never impossible. Think about it: Santa isn’t even real and yet he has more than 50,000 followers on Twitter – almost 50 times more than I do and I’m totally real! Yet, NORAD was able to tap into a notion that would enrich an audience member’s experience with its mission through the use of Santa.

That’s a pretty creative use of social media in my book. Can you think of other organizations that use social media for enrichment? Get back to me – I’m off see if NORAD can track down that mischievous New Year’s Baby so I can get a few more things done in 2010.

Apple Gets Hit with Privacy Suit: A Poem

Twas the week after Christmas and all through the land, millions of folks were making merry with iPads in their hands. In their pockets were iPhones, both fresh from the box. This Christmas was the best, they shouted, it really does rock!

But off in the distance they heard a small sound, the noise of a lawsuit slapping Apple around! They’re stealing our info, the lawsuit did shout. Leaving folks all to wonder what the fuss was about.

It’s the apps, said the lawsuit, they’re selling us out, they’re smashing our privacy of that there’s no doubt. Our names and locations, age, gender and more, if the app companies want it, we should show them the door! Apple can’t be allowed to sell our info this way, without our consent and without giving us pay. It’s our information and we want it kept quiet, so the court needs to stop them so no one can buy it!

Privacy is important says the lawyers from New York, whether you’re Joe the Plumber or that singer named Bjork. So now the court must decide as we broach the new year, whether Apple is liable for harshing our cheer. The lawyers, they claim, it’s about protecting our rights, but I say it’s a billion dollar settlement that they’ve got in their sights.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

What Internet Marketers Should Concentrate On For 2011

This is not your typical Top Ten list of “Things to Look for in the Next Year or So!”. There are plenty of those out there and they all pretty much say the same thing. So rather than add to the noise I am going to come at 2011 from a different angle. To be honest, none of these are going to bowl you over. Why? Because most things worth paying attention to really aren’t that sexy. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Here is my “Top Ten Things Internet Marketers Should Concentrate on in 2011”.

1.Choose Strategy Over Activity – This one is a biggie these days. Many people are still rushing headlong into social media, location based services and more so they can say they are doing it. Often though they are doing it without an express purpose or goal. None of the online world works on the “If You Build It They Will Come” principle. Just being there could actually mean you are spending valuable resources and cycles on things that aren’t getting the job done. Create a strategy that makes sense and get involved only in activities based on strategy that will generate revenue. All the rest is just being busy.

2. Get Back to Basics – In the rush to stay ahead of the curve, many businesses have left the basics behind and in most cases incomplete. For Internet marketers (especially the smaller players and B to B marketers) that means making sure that the foundation for your online efforts is strong. Does your website look dated? Change it. Have you not taken the time to make sure you have the basic SEO elements (for example, keyword appropriate content matched with title tags matched with H1 keyword use) in place on each and every page of your site? This is the absolute bare minimum but it beats not doing anything at all. Have you put in basic key performance indicators (KPI’s) to measure your progress or lack there of? Do you check them regularly? You get the point. Basics are boring but they are essential. Just do them before you do anything else.

3. Spread the Wealth – Share your knowledge with others in the company whether they want to hear it or not. Why? Because more and more people are seeing that Internet marketing and social media are rare in that anyone in the company can participate. Many do and don’t even realize it. If you are educating the rest of the company on what they can do to help, you are enabling people to be involved and contribute to the success. People like that. Management likes that. Don’t horde your knowledge. Be an educator and see what others can do to help once they are empowered to do so.

4. Fire Your Consultant – This is something that many people should have done long ago. If things are not progressing with any outside or outsourced help you are paying then stop paying them. The Internet marketing industry as a whole is rife with experts, gurus, mavens and more. If there is no progress in a relationship you have with an outsourced provider then end the relationship. It’s that simple.

5. Hire A Consultant – If you are stuck and have reached the limit of your knowledge in a particular area of Internet marketing (face it, no one as in NO ONE, can know all there is to know about everything related to Internet marketing and social media) then it’s OK to seek outside help. Find someone who is willing to work with you within your current constraints but is then willing to push you beyond those constraints if it will help you succeed. You may cycle through several consultants before you find the right fit. That’s OK. When you make this step though don’t think you deserve anything for free or that experience doesn’t carry value. Many consultants are not cheap and they shouldn’t be. In this area, the expression ‘you get what you pay for’ is a very real axiom so be careful and don’t be cheap!

6. Listen More, Talk Less – We are in an industry that has everyone out in the middle of the town square yelling at the top of their lungs in order to be heard. Don’t join the fray. Sit back and listen for helpful information. Turn your bullshit filter on high and make sure you are only letting in the information that will move you forward. If you try to take it all in you will waste time, money and more and get little or nothing in return. Use tools like Google Alerts or Trackur (shameless plug alert!) to filter through the noise.

Listening is also about knowing what the competition is doing, what people are saying about your company online, what prospects are really looking for. Remember that we are given one mouth and two ears so use them in the same proportion (for those who have a tough time with math that just means listen twice as much as you talk).

7. Don’t Assume – This goes back to strategy and is important in all areas of your Internet marketing efforts. Most people work on the assumption that if something is being written about then everyone must be using it. This could not be further from the truth especially in the Internet space. Make sure that the techniques and tools you are going to consider have a real chance of connecting with your customers and prospects. If not why in the world would you even consider them? Another old axiom that is SO true in the Internet space is “If you assume, you will make an ASS out of U and ME” (thank you Felix Unger).

8. Be A Learner – Never has it been more important to be a “life long learner” than it is today. In the Internet marketing space there are no ‘set it and forget it’ options. Things change rapidly and it is hard to keep up. Budget for and invest in education regarding Internet marketing and social media. If you are not learning everyday in this space then you are falling behind much faster than you could ever imagine.

9. Effective Trumps Cool – Based on what industry you work in and many other variables like resource availability, you may have to come to the understanding that what is deemed to be cool doesn’t impact your business at all so it’s not something to consider. It’s no fun making practical decisions that keep you from playing with the cool kids but at the end of the day wouldn’t you rather have the respect of your colleagues, a potential raise, job security and more over an ‘atta boy!’ by some industry flunkie whose ‘followers’ consist of 95% spammers and automated follows? Not everyone can be an Internet marketing star and really there are only a select few worth listening to anyway. Be effective rather than be cool. But hey, if you can do both then more power to you!

10. Avoid Shiny Objects – One thing that will happen in 2011 is that there will be Silicon Valley press folks drooling over some new technology or service that comes out in January and they will need to tell you just how game changing it is. Truth be told, many of these ‘cool’ things are used by the tech insiders and that’s it. They don’t have mass market appeal and never will. The technology insider press is very incestuous and self-serving (read: self-important) and while it’s tempting to think that what they are talking about could be ‘the thing’, most times it’s not. In fact, by the time you have worked out the plan to get that latest trinket into your system they have moved on, hyped something else and left that ‘next greatest thing’ on the Internet marketing scrap heap. They aren’t much different than that kid on Christmas morning who plays with the cool toy for 5 minutes then complains that they need another cool toy. Maybe we should take a cue from the little kids and play with the box instead. It’s not as cool but it does more!

So there it is. If you made it this far, congratulations. What would you add or take away from this? Agree or disagree? Thanks for playing along.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Are Social Bookmarking Sites Dying?

A couple of weeks ago Technorati released the State of The Blogosphere 2010, and one part of their report that caught my attention was the traffic sources breakdown.

The report illustrated that bloggers are getting social media traffic from two websites mainly: Facebook and Twitter. All the others have been dwarfed, as you can see in the image below.

social-bookmarking-dead

Some years ago getting in the front page of Digg, StumbleUpon or Delicious was the dream of any website owner, but it looks like that is not the case anymore. Facebook and Twitter are the only options right now.

And there is even more evidence to confirm this trend. Digg launched a new version some months ago, and it pretty much collapsed ever since. Its loyal users abandoned the ship claiming that the new version completely changed the dynamic of the site, and traffic is going down hill. I remember that a couple of years ago the top stories would get as much as 3,000 diggs, and now they get 200 or 300.

What about Delicious? It was one of the first social bookmarking sites, and it was tremendously useful, with a huge number of users who loved the service. Last week Yahoo! (the company who bought the site back in 2005) announced that they will either be closing Delicious down or selling it to someone.

I haven’t seen any news about StumbleUpon, but I don’t think it is going that well either. I used to get a lot of traffic from it on most of my websites, and that is all gone. Most of my webmaster friends are seeing the same pattern, so people seem not to be stumbling that much anymore.

All this background information to ask the following questions: Are social bookmarking sites dying? If so, why did this happen? The idea of bookmarking web pages socially seemed like a solid one, and if you ever used it you certainly saw the benefits. Despite that users are moving on to new and different things. What do you think?

E-mail and Social Media To Get Larger Slice of Budget Pie in 2011

It’s the time of the year when the Marketing Optimists’ Club convenes daily and tells how 2011 is the year of (fill in the blank here). There are wonderful predictions that are based on surveys of nameless companies and their so-called executives who break out their crystal balls and give service providers hope that there will be business in 2011.

Today’s version comes from Strongmail via eMarketer. Strongmail (I always think of Homestar Runner’s Strong Bad when I see this name) provides solutions to integrate e-mail and social media so I’ll give you one guess what their survey found. Ding! Ding! Ding! You got it! Both e-mail AND social media will see increased spending in 2011 and will merit more attention than search by a longshot.

Here is the graph, which proves that this prediction is right on the money (because pictures don’t stretch the truth, marketers do!).

I don’t disagree that e-mail and social media are important and deserve attention in marketing budgets. They are both important when used by the right kind of company in the right way. What I always have trouble with is ‘research’ that tells the perfect story for the people who would benefit from that ‘research’ being true. In this case, StrongMail gives it the double whammy by giving a rosy picture to both areas it is concentrated on. Gee, since they already know who these people are I suppose StrongMail is going to see the same growth as these budgets do, right?

As for just how this plan to integrate email and social media plays out, the numbers tell the story of a lot of folks getting ready to get ready as 72% of the respondents range in answers from “We are looking for a way to do this” to “I don’t know what you’re talking about”.

So as it is at the end of every single day as these numbers come out to confirm the relevancy of the research source, we ask you to read and apply with caution.

This prediction season, let us serve as your marketing designated driver. If you drink too much “This Is The Year of ___________” brand Kool-Aid, turn to us here at Marketing Pilgrim. We’ll sober you up by looking at the source of these prognostications. Then we’ll remind you that the only thing that matters is how this applies to your efforts today not whether someone tells you its degree of importance tomorrow.

Blogger Insight - Social Media

Friday, December 31, 2010

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