According to Squidoo.com, there are several factors which account for a good charity application on Facebook. They include: “user value, charity value, viral factor, and interest longevity potential”. They acknowledge that the charities are getting more and more substantial every day, therefore the need to update this list will become apparent soon enough. However, they believe that this list currently lists the best charity applications via Facebook
The list
The following is their list:
1) Good Samaritan–offers surveys to users that they can fill out, and every time a survey is filled out, money is donated to a certain organization.
2) iRipple–uses PPC campaigns and ads to donate money one of four organizations
3) Good Search–a search engine which allows users to donate a portion of proceeds towards a charity
4) Social Vibe–connects social networks with a social vibe account.
5) Charity Trivia–trivia charity application which donates 10 grains of rice for every question users get correct.
6) Give Stream–this application lets you donate money to 14 different charities via an Amazon store. With each product you buy, you donate a portion of that money to a charity.
7) Every Click– a PPC (Pay Per Click) based app which generates money via sponsored links and ads.
8) Competition for a Cause–a Twin City benefit app in which local owners are sponsoring an award amount, and teams are selected to choose how that award is donated.
9) Pennies at a Time–a shopping portal which charities “pennies at a time” every time you shop through their application.
10) New Year’s Card–an interesting “New Years wish” based app in which the most popular wishes receive 100 dollars.
My analysis
I thought the list was a very good one, mainly for the fact that it linked the readers to the applications, showed the pros, and showed the cons as well. Personally, I would have made a few changes. For example, I think Pennies at a Time should have been number ten, because it was stated that it is not clear where the spare change is actually going. For New Year’s Card however, it is quite clear that the most popular wish is the one that receives monetary support. Something to keep an eye open for: an updated list 6 months from now on Squidoo.com.
Here folks, is an opportunity too good to pass up to illustrate one of my main points, that we have lost our focus.
Recently, UNI (my college) beat Kansas University in college basketball. It was all over the news here, and for good reason, it was apparently quite exciting and unprecedented. On my Facebook, I can only begin to express the amount of content that was being dedicated to this upset. Pages upon pages of people posting their ecstatic support for the UNI team, and groups and fan pages popping up left and right. In a matter of hours, the entire recent activity of the site (At least in my network) was nearly 100% dedicated to the upset. March 20th.
Even more recently a political upset occurs, passing perhaps the 3rd most influential health care bill in the history of the U.S. I hear the news, all excited, and come back to check my Facebook… Silent. Dead. Not a single person in the last two hours had said ANYTHING about this landmark event. Why is this? I respect that we are entitled to enjoy our play, but honestly, there is a time and a place to care about the serious things as well that have a HUGE impact on our society. It’s irresponsible, childish, and shows just how disconnected and out of focus we’ve gotten. This is something that affects EVERYONE, and while I know I may be generalizing from the firsthand lack of response that I saw, certainly SOMEONE, out of ALL the people I know should be regarding this as a serious event!!
Even the NPR and other news feeds that sometimes get massive responses to updates such as the disasters in Haiti and Chile are awfully quiet… I don’t just know one kind of person either. Even though most of the people I connect with are young, as I’ve already said, this is not something that pertains to just one group. Wake up individual Americans, realize your role in this country, take responsibility, be virtuous.
Earlier today Facebook changed its album databasing schema which caused havoc to FacePAD users.
I’ve fixed the problem (yay) and in the process I made FacePAD easier to use!
FacePAD users no longer need to set language preferences – FacePAD is now compatible with all languages!
The new version can be downloaded here: http://z.isosp.in/arhm9X
Here are the release notes:
Version 0.7.0 (March 18, 2010)
1. Removed language preferences
2. Works with all languages supported with Facebook
3. Compatible with Facebook’s new Album Databasing Schema
4. Compatible though Firefox 3.7a4pre
Well, today was something of a special day. Since it was PASS Week, I did not do much work in any of my classes. Nothing interesting happened at school today, except for the fact that in the Gym this morning someone threw up on one of my best friends. She went home early because she was embarrassed. I feel bad for her. I sure hope everyone forgets about it on Monday. I don’t have to go to school tomorrow, it’s a Teacher Workday. Yay me! After school today I went to Great Clips and got a haircut. It was one of the first haircuts I actually like. After that I went to an AT&T Corporate Store to get a new SIM Card for my phone. Then I went home and ate a Box O’ Pizza and some chocolate pudding. And as I write this I’m trying to debate whether I should get an iPhone or the Nexus One… It’s gonna be a hard choice. I like Apple’s modern style, but I also enjoy Google’s creativity. Oh well. I’m looking forward to the weekend. So I’m just gonna hit the hay once I’m done on Facebook. (I’ll probably over-sleep by a few hours!) …End!
I have a love/hate relationship with facebook. I love analyzing people’s statuses (yes, I know how creepy this sounds) but I hate how much time I spend on it. At risk of making myself sound even more lazy than I already seem, I could spend about 6 hours on facebook every day. See? Major time-suck.
I also hate facebook for another reason: it takes me, and I believe anyone else who spends too much time on it, out of the real world. There were days I actually found myself forgetting about what was going on in my life because I was so busy trying to find out about everyone else’s.
Let’s face it- facebook is not just a social networking site. It’s a stalker’s wetdream, a miserable person’s crutch and procrastinator’s kryptonite. In short, it’s the devil. Okay, not really, but I am giving it up for Lent in the hope that I will break my facebook habit.
If it hasn’t happened to you yet, you will inevitably hear the words “We need to be on Facebook and Twitter.” Now mind you this isn’t coming from some profound strategy or remarkable use for the technology — but simply because that is what all the lemmings are doing. You”ll find these words freshly dripping from the mouth of many senior and mid-level leadership returning from business conference who ironically have:
a) never been on Facebook.
b) if they have, still don’t have a profile picture.
or my personal favorite
c) sign their name/initials to all of their posts.
As much as I enjoy social media and the many humorous laughs it affords, I don’t think marketer’s (and especially trade journals that cater to marketers) really understand that Social Media has its limits. From reading Ad Age you would think that the Apocalypse will now happen in 140 characters or less.
Many marketers suffer from the delusion that customer’s want to have a personal connection or relationship with a brand. I hate to burst your bubble, but they actually just really like your product. Don’t get me wrong, but as much as I like Coca-Cola, I could care less if they are trying to get their 2 millioneth fan on Facebook . . . I just want a refreshing drink when I’m thirsty. Of particular interest to me are the businesses like steel manufacturers getting fan pages. Really?
I certainly hope every business joins Facebook soon so that I can become a fan . . . because afterall, fans = sales, right? Well . . . not necessarily . . . someone put it like this: If a restaurant has 1,000 people sitting in its establishment because they like it, but no one buys a meals . . . you aren’t going to make any money – shocking, I know.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate social media at all. It’s a tool . . . but just that a tool. If you are going to use Social Media have a plan, stick to your plan but don’t make it your business plan.
Rememeber, that your business made money long before facebook and it will continue to make money long after facebook. I hope that businesses will realize the folly of hiring twitter experts or facebook gurus with proven experience in social media (how does one even define proven experience . . . ?) If you’ve hired one of these so-called experts, I hope you see a return on your investment, a real one – not simply 20 comments in response to your post of “Will the groundhog see his shadow?”
Just as we learned the hard way in the late 1990’s with the dot-com burst. I won’t be a bit surprised to hear of the Social Media Meltdown of 2011. You’ve heard it from me, consider yourself warned . . . the writing is on the wall – literally?
This article was originally written for my Posterous account, it has been left in it’s entirety.
Social Media, It Can Eat You Alive
Social Media, it can eat you alive if you let it. There’s so much to learn, so much to do, so the question is which ones do you participate in and why? I have friends who do Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. As time goes on I find that I like the flexibility of a self-hosted WordPress site, so I have that. Already got the different twitter accounts for various interest. Got the Facebook account. Use Hootsuite to manage those and have some things on “auto”. I’ve had an account with Posterous but was working on my WordPress blog so no time. Then I saw something that reminded me, “Hey, I have followers on my Posterous, but I haven’t put anything there, I don’t have time to write something for each site!” So, as I’m now looking at it, I remember why I signed up for the great “P” – it’s a simple blog that will post to your other social networking sites and there – you’re pau! (done in Hawaiian)
So I thought as I always do, how can I be more efficient? How do I connect everything and what do I want to share with the other sites? I use LinkedIn for professional/business stuff. I like to do mindless things like Foursquare which goes on my personal Twitter account @mLehua. I use my Facebook account to keep in touch with friends and family, people I already have relationships with – it’s more personal so I don’t have that account open to “everyone”. So what am I doing now that I wouldn’t mind everyone and their dog seeing? Posterous!
Posterous, according to their Wikipedia definition is “particularly for mobile blogging”. I was at BarCamp in Miami 2010 and one of the speakers said he was going to an Asian country for work and was told that he couldn’t blog, but wanted to keep his readers updated as to what he was doing as it was for his adventure travel company. One of the guys in the audience said, “Just send it by email to Posterous”. Well, that’s why we go to these things (BarCamps and networking). The speaker knew about getting his business online and blogging but was too busy doing his job; than keeping up with all the cool social networking things – so he said, “pasta what?” – The young man in the back said, “Posterous, you send it by email and it post to your blog and wherever else you want.” The speaker said something like, ‘really that would solve my problems.’ It’s awesome, that one piece of info just reminded me that when you go anywhere, if you can walk away with one small piece of new information, it maybe worth tons to your business or whatever you are working on.
I’ve noticed little coverage of a recent BBC World Service poll which concluded that “four in five adults questioned regard internet access as their fundamental right”.
From an Asian stand-point the research is interesting. Asia is well represented, of the 26 countries included is a healthy Southeast Asian presence in the form of Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand.
Southeast Asian trends
After looking at the findings I’ve collected the points below from the three Southeast Asia countries. Internet users in each are…
– concerned about content
– big users of social networking websites
– comfortable using the internet for dating – particularly in Philippines and Indonesia
– more likely to say they can cope without the internet, opposite of China, Japan, South Korea
The conclusions for each of the three Southeast Asian countries are below in full.
- – -
Thailand
While Thai web users believe very strongly that internet access should be a fundamental right (91%), they emerge as somewhat more wary than average about expressing their opinions online—58 per cent disagree that the internet is a safe place to do this, compared to a little over two in five who agree (42%).
It seems likely that Thailand’s lese-majeste laws (an example of which is here) are the primary cause for Thai concern over expression opinion online, particularly compared to opinions in Indonesia and Philippines.
A higher proportion than average (83%) agrees that the internet has increased their freedom.
This is consistent across all three countries.
Social networking sites are also more popular in Thailand than in many other countries—two-thirds of Thai web users say they enjoy spending their spare time on such sites.
As discussed before social networks rapidly growing in Thailand, and Southeast Asia, so much so that it is Facebook’s second fastest growing country.
Fraud is the main public concern relating to the internet across the 26 countries, violent and explicit content is clearly the greatest worry for Thai respondents (42%).
Concern for web content in Thailand is interesting.
On one hand, it could be argued that lese-majeste and the country ICT ministry’s over-zealous internet controlling has developed this worry, planted the seed. Alternatively, the fact that Thais worry can be said to justify the MICT’s actions.
I tend to go with the former argument given that I don’t know anyone who supports the MICT and its policies.
- – -
Philippines
The main internet-related concern among respondents in all countries surveyed is fraud (32%), followed by violent and explicit content (27%). But the picture among Filipino respondents differs dramatically, with 71 per cent citing violent and explicit content as their main worry: this rate is much higher than in any other country surveyed.
This suggests that Thailand’s concern over content is not as heightened as first assumed.
Users in the Philippines are similar to those in Indonesia in citing the internet’s usefulness for communicating and interacting with others as its most valued aspect (48%).
Again, coupled with Thailand and Indonesia, this conclusion falls in line with the huge growth of social media in Southeast Asia. See below more.
They, like Indonesians, are enthusiastic users of sites like Facebook or MySpace (88%), and—like users in Pakistan, India and Indonesia—are more likely than average to agree that the internet is a good place to meet potential romantic partners (42%), and that it is a safe place to express opinions (65%).
Along with internet users in Pakistan, those in the Philippines are much more likely than others to agree that they could cope without the internet (79% vs the overall average of 55%)
- – -
Indonesia
The ability to connect with others is the most appreciated aspect of the internet among Indonesian users—46 per cent, a larger proportion than in most other Asian countries, say communication and interaction with others is what they value most.
Consistent with this is the above-average popularity of social networking in Indonesia: 85 per cent of Indonesian web users say they enjoy using sites like Facebook or MySpace. In this, they resemble users in the Philippines.
The theme of social networking runs across all three Southeast Asian representatives
Internet users in Indonesia, along with those in India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, are more likely than average to agree the internet is a good place to make romantic connections, and that it is a safe place to express opinions.
Indonesian users attribute less-than-average importance to the internet, are more likely to say they could cope without it, and less likely to agree it is a fundamental right.
This is the distinct opposite to East Asian countries where the internet is faster and more reliable.
While fraud is the number one concern overall, Indonesians (44%) are more likely than other nationalities, including other Asian groups, to cite this as their most pressing concern.
Wanna know why social networking is not the downfall of society? My brother found a woman’s wallet and keys on the DC metro and sent her a facebook friend request to try to get them back to her. She accepted a week or so later and is now overjoyed to have her stuff back, several states and an area code away.
Wanna know why social networking is the downfall of society? Because now even more f—ing people think my brother is the world’s best human and I have no way to subvert that perception. I mean, who comes off as the petulant a–hole for claiming the whole thing was a hoax and he’s just doing facebook p.r.? Exactly.
This week seven St. Edward’s University students will attend the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) National Assembly. For the first time, the National Assembly will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Austin.
The PRSSA National Assembly will host students and elected Chapter delegates from 248 universities nationwide. PRSSA members will receive leadership training as well as vote on the National Committee representatives. The conference will include a Day of Competition sponsored by the CW network and numerous keynote speakers. The Assembly begins on Thursday, March 11th and continues through Sunday, March 14th.
“We are very excited to have the National Assembly hosted in our hometown, because it provides our chapter with a greater opportunity to send students who want to participate and get involved,” said Ally Hugg, St. Edward’s PRSSA Chapter President.
Local PRSSA Chapters at The University of Texas, Texas State, and St. Edward’s University , along with the Austin PRSA Chapter, will be hosting a “Networking Bingo” that will give students a chance to meet each other and network with Austin area communication professionals. This opportunity will allow students to work on interviewing skills, and discuss recruitment opportunities following Assembly activities on Friday, March 13th at 5:30PM at the Hyatt.
The St. Edward’s University Chapter will be live Tweeting from the Assembly and the “Networking Bingo” from @SEUPRSSA and from personal Twitter accounts. Students will also be posting information on the Chapter blog and Facebook account.
Contact:
Courtney Medford
St. Edward’s PRSSA Secretary
cmedfor@stedwards.edu
Everybody loves Facebook, right? Or at least almost 440 million active users, as of the latest stats available. That is, except big time professional advertising entities…
Until now.
Just this past week, Facebook and Omniture announced that they would soon be working together. This announcement created relatively little press fanfare as most of us do not know who the heck Omniture is. However, marketing professionals, particularly those involved with major companies placing advertising in the new media, recognize that this is a quite a big deal and are salivating over the actual launch of this partnership.
According to their site, Omniture “is a leader in online business optimization service software”. They provide software that:
Measures customer behavior
Compiles this behavior for real time stats and also for trend reporting
Automates online processes
This company also offers services that provide even more capability, but the above are the big three. The company serves top tier corporate and service provider clients, and is now owned by Adobe. This is a big, big deal!
According to the Associated Press, as reported on seattlepi.com: “Using Omniture’s products, companies will be able to measure how effective their ads are on Facebook. They will also be able to use Omniture’s search engine marketing management tool to buy Facebook ads. And they will be able to compare how well their ad campaigns do on Facebook compared with other outlets.”
Suddenly, Facebook won’t be for experimenting and testing anymore, as far as big companies and their agencies are concerned. All the objections and reservations that had to be explained to someone’s boss suddenly go away. Automated buying and measurement: Ease of placement and analytics. What more could any Fortune 100 marketer want?
It is my expectation that this one move will noticeably change the face and pace of Facebook. Is this for the better? I await your opinion.
I am not an expert in communication or what is considered standard communication etiquette. What I do know is how I interpret the communications I get. Which in most cases I do it wrong. It’s a gut feeling based on the the information I have at hand.
In this modern digital age we have many forms of communications between texting, facebook, email, and ect. Yet in all these instances I feel they are impersonal. They take out a very important part of the process. That part is hearing and seeing an instant reaction or the infliction of voice. On the digital front no one sounds exactly as they seem. We are allowed to craft a response that is unnatural. There is only so much one can “write” before it becomes meaningless.
Yes I will admit I am guilty of this, but I also know when to call up a friend to talk to get them to come out for a bit. I prefer the phone call to a text message or of facebook message. When I see my friends are having a bad day through facebook or AIM messages I’ll cal them up. I feel that a familiar voice is worth more than a few bytes of a text or other electronic message. In this day and age it also sends a message that you think they are important to reach out to.
I think it more comes down to balance. We have to know when an electronic interaction is good and when to pick up the phone to call. In this digital age it will get more difficult to make that decision as new forms of communication comes out. The younger generation will be growing up with this new technology and this will be standard for them.
It’s weird that I am in the IT field and yet part of me fells like I miss the days when you had to call someone to get in contact with them. I guess I’m old school like that and will probably continue that trend. I’ll embrace new technology and communications, but I’ll always know the value of a phone call or a nice get together with friends. It’s something that I feel is priceless.
Well, its Sunday and that only means one thing- its time to check how many notifications I am up to. My Facebook is starting to act real, real screwy. I think once you reach 99 it starts counting funny. So, anyway, this is what Facebook mobile has told me has occurred on my Facebook since Ash Wednesday: 13 new notifications, 7 friend requests, 27 inboxes, 17 other notifications, and 2 pokes. I remember some of those tallies being higher before, so I don’t know what really is going on. Well, plenty of work to do before I back home for Spring Break on Friday. Until then..
Once you are logged into Facebook, scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Advertising,” and then click “Pages.” There is some great information here about fan pages, so take a moment to read through the information, when you are ready click “Create Page.” As you go through the set-up process, remember that in any branding and marketing it is important to categorize your company in the right area to help people find you. So choose carefully.
One of the great things about Facebook is the ease of set up navigation. From here, setting up a fan page is really about following the prompts. Rather than point out each step, let’s look at the important ones to get your personal branding going.
1) Photo – Before you do anything else, make sure you have the perfect photo for your page. Maybe your logo is the best photo for your page, but maybe not. Think about other branding materials you have, maybe something seasonal. Obviously, you want your fans to see your photo and recognize your brand – that’s the goal. But if you have a creative image that is also recognizable, it might help your fan page attract fans with an element of fun.
2) Write something about your company – See the little box under your picture that says “Write something about your company” this is very important because this is one of the items that is visible on every tab of your fan page. This is your elevator statement in 250 characters or less. Be sure to include a link to your website here, and in order to make your link clickable, don’t forget the http:// before the www. (Note – this statement can be changed at any time, so it is a great place to highlight a promotion or other important happening for your company.)
3) Wall Settings – Another important tool in the set up of your page are the wall settings. You have to decide if you want visitors to be able to post messages for everyone to see or if you only want your own messages shown. Unless you have a super controversial company, I recommend starting with allowing everything. It will help you build your wall faster because people like to post messages. If the posts become out of control or unflattering, you can always delete individual posts or turn off the setting all together later. (You will find “Wall settings” under “Edit page.”)
Once you fill in all of the basic information, you have successfully created a fan page. Don’t forget, it is easy to change if something changes, so don’t sweat it.
Now you are ready to take your page live, it is important for you to let people know about your page. This is where having an already active personal profile comes in handy because if you already have a lot of “friends” who are interested in your company, you can “suggest” your new page to them.
Alright you have a page, you have suggested to all of your friends, now what? Now you start the real work. Marketing and branding takes time and attentiveness. You can’t just set up this page and hope people find you. If there is nothing on your page that interests people, no one will become a fan. Social media is fun – your fan page should be too. Post interesting things about your company, but don’t be afraid to post something fun too. Try posting open-ended questions (to entice responses from your fans) such as “What is your favorite XYZ?” “What do you plan to do for the XYZ holiday?”
Posting links and/or photos are also a great way to get people interested, plus they are more visually appealing so people are more apt to pay attention. Posting links to your website has the added benefit of pushing people to your site to find out more. Try posting on your fan page every time you update your blog – “Check this out” and attach a link to your blog.
Remember, the most important reason you have a Facebook fan page is to use it as a branding strategy to promote your personal brand. So, if your company is very “green” conscious, share tidbits about being green. If your company is all about marketing and branding (like us), you might post pictures of events, links to blog posts and information about the companies you help brand.
Those are the basic features of a Facebook fan page, but once you get going you will realize that there are many more things you can add to your fan page such as customizable apps, connect the page to your Twitter feed, and much more. But you can’t do any of the fancy things until you get started with the basics, so for now create your page and start building your fans. Oh, and don’t forget to include a new link on your website to let people know they can become a fan on Facebook.
And that is how you can use Facebook as a branding strategy for your business.
I’m a vivacious Jane. (Jane being used in the general sense of a young, attractive, somewhat adventurous girl) I work at a small technology company. I am unappreciated in my office, and I basically do nothing all day. Even when I suggest things I could do, they don’t take my suggestions. If you think about it. It’s hilarious. I get paid $500/week to go on Facebook and write in my blog.
So today started with a dream. A dream that a wolf was guiding me to a bureau where I was going to put on my uniform to prepare for battle. I opened the bottom drawer. I rifled through all the clothing but I couldn’t find this uniform. The wolf nudged her nose (It was a girl) at the middle drawer. There was the uniform, plain as day! It was all black. Then this orange cat was there, showing me all the different pieces of the uniform. Then this timid hispanic girl was there, asking me if I wanted help to put it on.
I thought this dream was telling me that I was doing the right thing by staying in this crappy, conformist terrible job. because putting on the uniform was significant of “joining the ranks.” But now I think it was telling me that I subconsciously feel that I should ditch the gig, and battle my way through the world!
So today, I came in 30 minutes late as usual. I checked my Farmville, wrote 3 blog entries, answered some personal e-mails, checked Facebook. My boss came in at 10. He is always bringing in baked goods that his wife makes. Her cookies are decent, but he brought in these disgusting oily muffins today. He was offering them around to everyone like an idiot. They tasted like cookie dough. Good for cookies, bad for muffins.
He sat down. I waited a few awkward moments and asked him what I should do. He said, “oh just let me respond to these e-mails!” I was just like “blah ok”.
2 hours later. He told me to post something to the company’s Facebook page. BUT someone had just posted something a WHOLE THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE. So he told me to wait a few hours.
As I was googling Malopuff to see how the website was ranking, I was happy to find my page has broken through language barriers, where my page received a small review in Japan. And to my excitement, they had also realised the websites potential.
Japanese Review (Translated to English) – http://bit.ly/coqtuC
What is Malopuff?
Malopuff is a social media search engine. Where Google, Yahoo and many other search engines display top websites based on a keyword search, Malopuff displays the most popular trendsetters in social media.
If I were to enter a niche, such as website design. If I don’t appear in the results, I’m not trending. So the person/people that do appear, these are people I should be following, so I can try to replicate their success. I would do this by following them in Twitter, monitoring what they say in their tweets, what time they send their tweets etc..
Share with the world
Providing rich content for your followers is important, and one of the great features Malopuff provides, is the ability to share the latest news/trends through your social media accounts. Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, My Space etc..
The social platform also allows you to create a poll or vote. The user can add a picture to a poll, which many have turned into a fun feature. Malopuff will then create a URL address which you can then share with your friends, family, or followers.
Are you trending? Only one way to find out - http://malopuff.com/
The newest issue of the Oregon Voice came out just a few weeks ago, and I am proud to say that this issue is our best of the year. However, today I received an awesome message and friend request which was in direct response to a review I wrote of The Tao of Wu, RZA’s newest piece of literature.
You can read the article, along with the entire issue by clicking here:
Oregon Voice Volume XXI Issue II: The Film Issue
and you can peep the new friend I made in the name of Wu here:
Conferences, meetings and parties are all events that might not have started online, but which can definitely benefit from online promotion and mention.
Leverage your offline event with some smart social media marketing. Here are seven ways you can maximize exposure of your event using online tools.
1. Blog About It
Before, during and after your event, blog about it. Blogging beforehand can alert others about your event and encourage them to learn more or register to attend.Live blogging during your event can create buzz and excitement for those who were unable to attend (and provide them a snippet of what they missed, which will encourage them to look for your next event). Blogging after can provide a recap, as well as info on upcoming events.
SXSW attendee Allen Stern liveblogged several sessions at the 2009 event. His blog posts are little more than notes from the presentation, but they do a good job of relaying the highlights to readers quickly.
2. Post Photos on Flickr
Everyone loves seeing photos of themselves (as long as they’re flattering). By posting photos of your event on Flickr and tagging them with people’s names, you can generate interest in your event from the people who attended and those who follow them on various social media channels.
BlogHer posts photos from its conferences and events both in the header on its website and in its Flickr stream. It invites participants to upload their own photos from the events into the Flickr stream, which encourages interaction.
3. Put it on Facebook
You can also post the photos and tag them on Facebook. The added benefit of doing so on Facebook is that when you tag someone, it appears on their wall. Anyone who is a friend of someone you tagged can see the photo. The idea is that it will lead them to want to learn more about the event (because hey, they want their photo put on Facebook from a cool local event too). Note that you’ll only be able to tag people that you’re connected to.
If your event or company has a Facebook Page, you can include highlights from the event, like quotes from keynotes, activities, awards or even faux pas from speakers.
For even more interaction, visit the profiles of those that attended and leave custom comments: “Hope you got that wine stain out of your blouse. Sorry about that!” “Great comment you made at the keynote presentation!” etc.
The Wine Conference, an annual event held in Houston, posts updates on the conference to its Facebook Page. Here the event posts logos for its sponsors, photos from events, and blog links about the conference.
4. Post Photos to Twitpic
Twitpic is a great tool that allows you to take a photo with your phone or camera and upload it directly (via a shortened URL) to Twitter. Anyone following you on Twitter will see your tweet and the link to the photo, and can click to view it.
During your event, what better way to show those not in attendance what they’re missing than by taking photos and sending them in real time? Save your hi-resolution photos to be processed later, but upload snapshots from your phone instantly to create a sense of visual livestreaming as the event is underway.
5. Tweet the Event
Don’t overlook the best real-time tool in social media for your event. Sending tweets out to your followers is a great way to keep everyone updated on what’s happening. Whether it’s an awards show where you can share the winners before journalists write about them, or a conference where you can tweet soundbites, Twitter is a great tool for connecting people online and offline to your event.
6. Use Hashtags
The easiest way to track tweets and other mentions of your events on social media platforms is to ask all participants to use a # with a designated keyword or phrase when discussing it.
For example, in 2009, BlogWorld New Media Expo used the hashtag #bwe09 on Twitter to track all mentions of it. Many presentations used this hashtag or one relating to a particular topic as a way to field questions and comments during the presentations. For those unable to attend, following the hashtag was a great way to stay updated on soundbites from the conference.
7. Livestream Your Event
If your event is a conference or educational platform, consider livestreaming it via web video. Using services like Justin.tv or Ustream.tv, you can broadcast your event live over the Internet. This helps expand your audience and interact with them, even if they are not present in person at your event.
Wrapping it Up
Remember that you can get the most out of online promotion if you start long before the event. Map out a strategy that includes what you will do prior to the event, during, and after. Ask employees and attendees to assist you by posting their own take on the event through their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr accounts. Make it as easy as possible for anyone to share their content and photos of your event online.
I don’t have many problems with Facebook. Since it implemented the Friends List setting, I can be friends with a range of people from close pals, to acquaintances, to family without thinking twice. I have three such lists — one for close friends, one for acquaintances and one for family — for those occasions. Close friends are people I have shared more than just eye-contact with and have access to everything. They know my politics, my religious thoughts, my pictures, my statuses, etc. Acquaintances are people that I’ve politely accepted Friendship Requests from but don’t plan on getting too chummy with. They still have access to my statues and pictures, but personal stuff like religion, politics, work history, etc. is all private. Family includes members of my family (aunts, uncles, etc.) that I want to be Facebook friends with in name only. They cannot see anything on my account except for my birthday, email and postal address. I keep it this way because my most of my family is on the opposite side of the spectrum politically as well as religiously and I want to avoid more religious/political debates with them. That’s not saying all of my family members have a restricted setting; my brother and cousins are actually in my Close Friends list and have access to more information.
These three tiers of privacy that I’ve created come with a drawback: they are contingent on Facebook keeping their interface consistent which I know it not to be. My friends now see my other friends, and that bothers me. I don’t like that I can’t have individual privacy settings per user, but I’ve made do with the Friends Lists. I’ve also been careful of what I’ve posted on Facebook too: I don’t put anything remotely passive-aggressive or attention-grabbing. If I have to think longer than ten seconds about whether or not I should put something as my status, I don’t do it. As far as pictures go, I don’t care too much about the few “drunk pics” here and there. I’m above the legal age and I don’t care that my friends know that I drink and sometimes to excess. Though I’m comfortable with Facebook, I don’t know if my friends implement or are even aware of the privacy settings. Facebook does an excellent job of making your privacy as difficult as possible to obtain.
What about younger people? I’m twenty-five, married, and educated: the burden of privacy lies on me. Since Facebook opened up their sign-ups to everyone everywhere, I’ve seen a meteoric rise in people under the age of 18 signing up for Facebook. A friend of mine with a 14-year-old daughter had an interesting approach to his daughter’s Facebook privacy: if she wants to keep her account, she must be friends with him, her aunts/uncles, and her grandparents. That way, she won’t even be tempted to post something private. He can see her friends and knows from whom she accepts friendship requests. I thought this was a great idea — rather than forbid his children from using a service, he allows it with restrictions. It might not be comfortable for her, but it is a great way for a parent to keep an eye on what their children do online.
Of course there are people I will never accept Friendship requests from (beside the obvious). I won’t accept Friendship requests from anyone from church. Much like my family, I’m not always sure who shares my politics or religious beliefs at church so I avoid conflict in the first place. The only exception to this rule is my priest, who I came to know outside of church first. I also won’t accept Friendship requests from people I’ll be working with. Again, I don’t know who shares my religious/political views but also I don’t want to become friends with co-workers. I want a completely separate home life and work-life.
(Really, does all privacy boil down to religion and politics?)
Remember: Facebook doesn’t consider us to be its users — we are the product. The advertisers are its users. I have so much trouble explaining this to my friends who WHARGARBLE at every change in layout, policy, or privacy. Facebook does NOT care that you joined “1,000,000+ Strong Against the Newest Layout Change!”. If it did, it would have caved in and changed it back the first time. Because of this, do not be upset when it changes its privacy settings again — and it will, it is just a matter of time. There are other social networking sites, such as Plaxo and LinkedIn, that do a much better job with privacy than Facebook. However, neither are as popular as Facebook and probably won’t get a boost in use until Facebook does something really stupid (like opening it up completely).
I recommend every business have a Facebook fan page. Marketing that page is a bit tricky because the domain name or URL is so long and ugly.
For instance, my old one looks like this – http://www.facebook.com/pages/SEO-by-Swaby/137031038432?ref=nf. That’s going to look real pretty on a brochure or other marketing piece isn’t it?
What if there was a way to go from that to something like this – www.facebook.com/seobyswaby? There is! Just get 25 fans. Once you have 25 fans, you can get a custom domain name…if it’s available. So the race is on. Once you create your business fan page, invite people who would be interested to join it. Then you can get the custom subdomain you want!
I’ve been able to convert my top three Facebook properties to custom domains and I’m pretty happy about it. What about the old URL links? They still work!
There you have it…how to get a custom Facebook URL. Don’t have 25 fans? Invite your friends!
I don’t know about you but Facebook updated their privacy settings earlier this year after undergoing some heat about people’s photos being all over the internet. (One girl’s dead mom showed up in a Facebook ad).
But the settings are a bit confusing and need to be deciphered. Why? Because some questions read like you should say yes, but really say no, comparable to Proposition ballots at the voting polls.
This is a long post. But here are a few things you need to know:
1. How to edit your privacy settings
Log into Facebook . In the upper right corner it will say Home, Profile and Account. Click on Account to edit the settings I detail below.
2. How to change your info from when you originally signed up.
Log into Facebook. In the upper right corner you will see Home, Profile and Account. Click on Profile.
Now let’s start with the Privacy Settings. There are multiple areas you need to fill out. This is worse than doing your taxes.
Profile – controls who can see your profile and who can post to your wall
About Me – refers to the About Me description in your profile
Personal info – refers to what you listed as your interests, activities, favorites when setting up your profile.
Birthday – will show your birth date and year (if you filled out the year part, but know that it’s optional and you can just fill out the month and day)
Religious and Political views – refers to what you filled out in this section. It is beyond my comprehension why anyone would fill this out. But if you do, probably best to either limit it to just your friends or customize it.
Family and relationship – refers to what you entered in Family Members, Relationship Status, Interested In, and Looking For fields when setting up your profile.
Education and work – refers to what you filled out under the Schools, Colleges and Workplaces fields when you set up your account.
Photos and videos of me – - refers to Photos and Videos you’ve been tagged in. Now when you are tagged you can go to the pic or video and Untag yourself. Once you do that you can’t be tagged again in that photo or video.
Photo albums – you need to edit each album as you put it up. You need to click on Customize so that you can determine if you want only you, some friends (people you specify), friends of friends, everyone (default). Otherwise it defaults to Everyone (aka. Millions of Facebook users)
Posts by me – refers to who sees your Status Updates, Links, Notes, Photos, and Videos you post. again, probably best to limit to just friends or specific people.
Allow friends to post to my wall – check the box if you want to allow your friends to post to your wall. Leave it unchecked if you don’t want anyone to be able to post to your wall.
Posts by my friends – sets who can see your status updates, links, notes, photos, and videos you post. Strongly suggest you set this to the same as Posts by Me above.
Comments on Posts - controls who can comment on posts you create. Again, suggestion is to set this to whatever you have Post by my Friends set to above.
Contact – controls who can contact you on Facebook, see your contact info and email
IM Screen Name – refers to what you listed in your profile when you set up your account.
Mobile Phone – refers to what you listed in your profile when you set up your account.
Other Phone – refers to what you listed in your profile when you set up your account.
Current Address – refers to what you listed in your profile when you set up your account.
Website – refers to what you listed in your profile information
Hometown – refers to what you listed in your profile information
Add me as a Friend – controls who can add you as a friend from search results for your name and from your profile. This can only be set to Everyone or Friends of Friends.
Send me a message – this controls who can send you a message from search results and from your profile. Do you want everyone on the internet who does a search for you be able to send you a message via Facebook? Probably not. Suggestion is to set this to only friends.
Your email address (physically listed) – Suggest to list it to only your friends or Customize so that only you can see it. Because honestly, if you only friend people you know then they probably already have your email address.
Applications and Websites – controls what information is available to Facebook-enhanced applications and websites.
What you share – Applications you use will access your Facebook information in order for them to work. For example, a review application uses your location in order to surface restaurant recommendations.
When you visit a Facebook-enhanced application or website, it may access any information you have made visible to Everyone (Edit Profile Privacy) as well as your publicly available information. This includes your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages. The application will request your permission to access any additional information it needs.
At the bottom below the image, you will see a note that says:
”You can view the full list of Applications you have authorized on this page.” This page is hyperlinked and when you click on it you will see the list of all of the applications you have said Yes to and you can edit your settings there.
An example:
Causes – When you click Edit Settings there are a few things that appear such as whether or not you have a box on your FB page or a tab at the top (where it says Wall, Info, etc). It also lists Info section – this is listed under the Info tab on your home page. If you want people to see it there, great, if not, remove it. And finally, there is a privacy setting here where it controls the visibility of, for example, the Causes’s Box or Tab on your Profile. You can limit it to Friends, Everyone, Friends of Friends, Only Me or Customize.
What your friends can share about you – OMG! This is a nightmare and a MUST edit. Suggestion is to uncheck everything. But entirely up to you.
When your friend visits a Facebook-enhanced application or website, they may want to share certain information to make the experience more social. For example, a greeting card application may use your birthday information to prompt your friend to send a card. If your friend uses an application that you do not use, you can control what types of information the application can access. Please note that applications will always be able to access your publicly available information (Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages) and information that is visible to Everyone.
i. Personal info (activities, interests, etc.)
ii. Status updates
iii. Online presence
iv. Website
v. Family and relationship
vi. Education and work
vii. My videos
viii. My links
ix. My notes
x. My photos
xi. Photos and videos of me
xii. About me
xiii. My birthday
xiv. My hometown
xv. My religious and political views
Blocked Applications - is exactly how it sounds. It’s a listing of applications that you have blocked and it allows you to unblock if you want. But you cannot block applications from here.
Ignore Application Invites – Ignore application invites from specific friends
Activity on Applications and Games Dashboards – controls who can see your activity in the Friends’ Recent Activity, Friends’ Applications and Friends’ Games sections of these pages.
4. Search – who can see your search result on Facebook and in search engines
Facebook search results – limits who can see your search result on Facebook. Your choices are Friends of Friends, Everyone, Only Friends.
Public Search Results – This setting only allows search engines to access your publicly available information and any information you set to Everyone. This does not include anything you’ve shared with just your friends or friends of friends. Suggestion is to uncheck ‘Allow’. Think about it, only people you don’t know would look for you on an internet search engine.
5. Block List – who can interact with you on Facebook
The place where you can create a blocked list of people you do not want interacting with you on Facebook. Note that blocking someone may not prevent all communications and interactions in applications, and does not extend to elsewhere on the Internet.
IM Screen Name – refers to what you listed in your profile when you set up your account.
Mobile Phone – refers to what you listed in your profile when you set up your account.
Other Phone – refers to what you listed in your profile when you set up your account.
Current Address – refers to what you listed in your profile when you set up your account.
Website – refers to what you listed in your profile information
Hometown – refers to what you listed in your profile information
Add me as a Friend – controls who can add you as a friend from search results for your name and from your profile. This can only be set to Everyone or Friends of Friends.
Send me a message – this controls who can send you a message from search results and from your profile. Do you want everyone on the internet who does a search for you be able to send you a message via Facebook? Probably not. Suggestion is to set this to only friends.
Your email address (physically listed) – Suggest to list it to only your friends or Customize so that only you can see it. Because honestly, if you only friend people you know then they probably already have your email address.
Kirsten Parucha Writes about the Change of Facebook - Photo Courtesy of Dreamstime.com
Online Story – Kirsten Parucha
16 February 2010
Facebook has once again gone under another makeover. And once again, the makeover is absolutely unnecessary.
As of early February, those who logged onto their Facebook accounts would have noticed a subtle change on their homepage, and would also be left questioning, “For what reason?”
The new Facebook layout only pertains to the homepage, which is the first page Facebook users are automatically directed to when first logging on.
Before the makeover, notifications were located at the bottom-right corner of the page. Now they are located in the top-left corner of the page, along with additional notifications of new messages and group invitations. Besides the relocation of these attributes, not much has changed with Facebook.
However, over the course of the past few months, Facebook has made other changes that don’t pertain to their layout. They have made changes with their privacy and security settings, adding more privacy and security options for optimal safety for Facebook users.
Although it’s common for Facebook to change and re-arrange their applications and layout structure on their website, avid users are always temporarily baffled about the changes and left in wonderment.
It’s not uncommon to see status updates such as, “Just as soon as I got used to the old Facebook, they go and change everything again” right after a Facebook makeover.
The reasons for these constant and most likely unnecessary changes: To keep it interesting? To keep it updated and relevant? To lure more Facebook users?
Whatever the reason may be, Facebook users will never figure it out because another change will be made before a conclusive answer is made.
This was around the time when Facebook had changed its privacy settings, search deals were being made with social networks and people were getting that first hint of being uncomfortable with what information companies were going to use to monetize. This was way before Google entered the equation of privacy with Buzz.
Back then, Eric Schmidt had famously quoted :
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.
Two months later. Eric Schmidt’s former girlfriend — going by the net moniker RecoveryGirl007 — writes a tell-all blog about her life that includes (guess what ?) her former relationships. So there was a sense of delicious irony in this piece of news :
We’re told the Google CEO’s aggressive lawyers brought down ex-girlfriend Kate Bohner’s online recovery diary this weekend.
Kate Bohner was the name of his mistress. The bringing-down of the website should’ve been fairly easy : It was hosted at Blogspot. Dr. Strangelove was the nick Kate used to refer to Eric Schmidt in her writing — presumably, because he holds a Ph.D. That also explains the title of this post. There are some funny bits about some other famous people. Read that link if you like gossip.
******
I shouldn’t really bother about what anyone does in their personal time. It was just the irony of the situation that I wrote the post for.
******
I do believe that users need to have a sense of what information they are sharing (it could be inadvertent) with the world. With location-based services getting popular, I don’t think many are aware of how serious the issue of privacy is. For example, sample the recent Rob Me application, that uses location based services to find when people are not at home.
Of course, someone like me recommending precaution sounds way less suspicious than the CEO of Google saying the same thing. But as Kurt Vollegut put it so beautifully, So it goes.
Here is my first featured neighbor’s cafe offering to you. This is the cafe of my neighbor Allen!
For me, her cafe was so relaxing! Yeah, it seems that you’re in a particular resort having different tropical views!
I like the combination of her colors. It’s mainly the combination or variation or green and blue! So nice the eyes…so relaxing!
Well, Allen is already on the higher level of the game (higher than me) to be able to buy such expensive and beautiful ornaments like what she had presented in her cafe!
Twitter is a service that’s quickly increasing in size. It’s a blend between a social networking internet web site and a micro-blog. With over two millions users, Twitter is becoming a popular way to stay in touch with co-workers, friends, family and more.
“If you are not on Twitter then you are not on the world wide web“
As for how you are able to use Twitter to market yourself or your business online, begin with updates. E.g., do you sell health supplements products? If so, rapidly describe the product you just made and provide a link to the internet site where it’s available for sale. Rather than saying buy my product, ask for feedback. Depending on how your message is looked at, the link may not be clickable. If anybody likes it, they may buy.
If you’ve yet to try Twitter, you will want to do so. As stated before, Twitter is a combo micro-blog and social networking internet site. For that reason, some internet bypass the chance. One of those is internet marketers and home based workers. If you work from home or from your computer, your primary goal while online is to bring in money, not make new friends. This focus is beneficial, but it can also hurt you and your business.
Since you are able to use Twitter to do more than just update your current friends and family members, you might prefer to get started. If you do not already have a Twitter account, the first step is visiting the internet site, which is located at Twitter.com. You’ll see a link to get started. Click on that link and fill out the form. You’ll be required to create a username, a password, and provide your email address.
“If you’ve yet to try Twitter, you will want to do so”
Although you are able to easily add Twitter friends and followers that you don’t know, some are conservative about accepting invites. For marketing purposes, use the internet, forums, and other social networking websites for information. E.g., if you sell homemade products, you could also belong to an arts and crafts or home founded business forum. Post a message inviting Twitter contacts. In no time in the least, you could have quite the following. Remember, the more Twitter followers you have, the more you are able to market your business. Internet Marketing Guide
If you’ve a personal Facebook account, you specify to make a Facebook page for your business concern. To make this business sector pagination you require to have a personal Facebook account established 1st. The fan page is associated to your personal account from a log in linear perspective, but doesn’t admit the friends and additional associations you’ve created on your personal page. Therefore, the page can be applied to advertise your business sectors, and your personal account can be continued separate. Technically, it’s a violation of Facebook Terms of Service to apply a personal account for business sector, so if biz is your destination, you’ll desire to make a Facebook page.
To create a Facebook page for your business:
1. Log-in to your personal Facebook account
2. Type: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
3. Choose your business class type from the radio button choices, and then decide the suitable subcategory from the dropdown menu
4. Insert your business organization name in the “Name of Page” field
5. Insert the security textual matter, click enter, and your pagination will be produced!
6. Crucial: On the next page you’ll see your basic Facebook page. It’s a good thought to bookmark the universal resource locator of this page. Also, click on the “Become a Fan” push button so you are able to get the 1st fan of your own page. Believe it or not, these 2 things will assist you discover the page link later, as Facebook does not make discovering it self-evident from your personal visibility page.
7. You are able to upload a picture to apply for your business ID, just like you applied an image for your personal ID. Also – you will desire to update the information part with your business organization name, address, and internet site. You are able to add further fact about your business and hours of operation as well if you like.
You’re now ready to begin placing and gathering targeted fans!
The photography of Natalie Dybisz a.k.a. Miss Aniela
By Diane Berkenfeld
The ubiquity of the internet has allowed artists far and wide to reach a much larger audience than they would have been able to by traditional means. This is true of Natalie Dybisz a.k.a. Miss Aniela, (www.missaniela.com) a photographer and artist who has turned her self-portraiture, initially created and posted on Flickr for her own enjoyment, into a brand, complete with a new liveBooks powered website, two self-published books, exhibitions and more to come.
“Aniela is my middle name. I wanted a kind of alter-ego to serve as a name to use on Flickr,” Natalie says. Once she started exhibiting her work, she says it felt right to stick with that name as her artist’s moniker.
Natalie explains that she was fond of snapping photos as a teen, when she first began to shoot self-portraits. Her interest in photography blossomed when she went to university. It was at this time that she discovered online photo sharing as well as the joys of digital processing.
Early on she used Sony compact cameras and lacked a tripod. Natalie then graduated to a Sony R1, which features a swivel screen that makes capturing self-portraits convenient, and a tripod. She used the R1 for about two years. In September 2008 Natalie transitioned to her first DSLR, a Canon EOS 40D. She recently upgraded yet again to a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, a larger, sturdier tripod and flashes.
Natalie’s first website was created in 2007, as a place on the web where she could display a gallery of her photos and write about herself. She transitioned to a liveBooks site this year. “I liked the look of their sleek, fast Flash sites. It looked ideal for displaying photography, and I also liked that I was able to talk about my ideas and have the designers create a custom site based on my vision for my brand,” she says. Adding, “I also like being able to edit my site whenever I want, to edit text, and to add or remove pictures, which is easy enough in the editSuite that comes with the site.” The liveBooks site is the portfolio or gallery, for Natalie’s more refined work, as well as a place to disseminate information about her books, prints and her contact information. “The website is a showcase, a place that is generally consistent. My blog, (www.missanielablog.com) however, is a place with constantly updating information, a place to share essays or thoughts, or to promote my events,” she says. “The way I choose to use Flickr is rather like a studio, where I share lots of images, to see which gauge the most reaction or comment, or just for me to see images build and then to determine which ‘do it for me’ in the long term, and I may then add them to my galleries on my main website. I use Facebook and Twitter to link through to blog posts or to Flickr posts,” she adds.
In addition to a number of exhibitions and speaking engagements, Natalie has produced two books which are available on Blurb (click here): Self-Gazing, a collection of self portraits taken over the course of three years; and Multiplicity, with images taken over the course of more than four years that showcases her evolution of multiplicity photographs. As savvy a businesswoman, as she is a photographer, Natalie also offers fine-art prints of her work and commercial licensing opportunities.
Natalie has also collaborated with other artists. The books She Took Her Own Picture, Selections from the Female Self Portrait Artists’ Support Group available on Blurb (click here), features the work of 44 female self-portrait artists on Flickr including images from Miss Aniela; and In Her Own Image, Selections from the Female Self Portrait Artists’ Support Group also available on Blurb (click here).
(l. to r.) Natalie's two self-published books: "Miss Aniela: Self-Gazing" and "Miss Aniela: Multiplicity" and two books she's collaborated on, as part of the Female Self Portrait Artists' Support Group: "She Took Her Own Picture" and "In Her Own Image"
Q: What inspires you?
A: I have an assortment of inspirations. I don’t look at as many photography books and exhibitions as I should, and I spend too much time online looking at photo-sharing sites. I am inspired by anything from childhood thoughts to dreams, to raging depressive thoughts, from the joy, yet futility of life, to the chilling mystery of death.
I like the work of several people I have seen online, like Rossina Bossio and Rosie Hardy. I also admire the work of Gregory Crewdson, Julia Fullerton-Batten, and Ellen Kooi.
Q: How did you know you were onto something with the Miss Aniela brand?
A: It wasn’t easy for me at first to see Miss Aniela as a brand, probably because my work is so personal, so it was like the images were not just my work, they were me. The stage, therefore, of separating myself from my brand whilst also being able to accept that my brand is very personal, was a challenging step. So, whilst I saw from 2007-2008 that my work was becoming popular and I wanted to go further with it and do it for a living, it still took me a while to see that my artwork can be considered as a brand and a business, something I can sell without feeling as if I were selling myself. As such—I could objectify the self-portraiture as one aspect of what I do, and not the sum total of my being.
Q: What did you think when you realized the large number of people that were viewing your images on Flickr?
A: I was surprised and pleased but always aware that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Just because a load of people have clicked on your work doesn’t necessarily validate one’s images. It just meant I had the attention of an audience for an unforeseen length of time, and yet, the audience wasn’t all mine to play with, it was an audience through Flickr. I try to use that audience the best I can in encouraging them to visit my site, join my mailing list, join me on Facebook and Twitter, etc. Even then, the number of people following you and your updates doesn’t often feel like it means anything till someone actually offers me an exhibition or buys a print.
Q: How have you been able to grow your photography into a brand?
A: It has been fairly easy to self-publish books and to make these available to people online, and also to show and sell them at presentations and events. Exhibitions are an aspect that is harder to achieve, as they require collaboration with galleries or other venues. Most of my exhibitions have been offered to me, so the whole scene of approaching galleries is something new to me. I try to keep my brand consistent across books, gallery shows, and my website, in terms of graphic identity, but with the exhibitions, it is harder because the gallery will present the exhibition on their own terms.
Q: What direction do you think you’re going to take your work into next?
A: I would just like to carry on doing what I do, producing images I am artistically engaged with, and pursuing exhibitions and print sales. I would like to have a large-scale exhibition that is accessible to both the art scene and the general public. Another angle to my photography goals is to broaden my experience and my learning of the technical side to the art so I can teach workshops in the UK and beyond. I would like to become a published author (outside of my self-published books) and write books on photography and art, something that I will hopefully begin this year.
All you have to do is take one look at Natalie’s work to see that she’s got a great eye for photographic composition and design, and we expect to see much more of Natalie Dybisz a.k.a. Miss Aniela in coming years. Go to the website www.missaniela.com to see more of her work, or check her out on Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.
Menurut situs teknologi TechCrunch, diam-diam Facebook tengah menyiapkan fitur baru yang bakal menjadi andalan mereka: email gratis untuk facebooker.
Berdasarkan informasi yang diberikan oleh sumber yang tidak ingin disebutkan namanya, Michael Arrington dari TechCrunch, mengatakan bahwa Facebook tengah mengerjakan Project Titan, yakni proyek yang bisa jadi, bakal menjadi ‘Gmail Killer’.
Selama ini Facebook telah menyediakan fitur message untuk pengguna. Namun, tetap saja, bagi pengguna, itu tidak akan menggantikan layanan web email, karena Facebook Messages hanya digunakan saat pengguna sedang login di Facebook.
Tak heran bila beberapa saat lalu situs jejaring sosial MySpace juga menyediakan layanan web email, yang sayangnya tidak mendukung POP/ IMAP. Nah kali ini, Facebook kabarnya akan menyediakan layanan web email yang bakal mendukung POP/ IMAP itu.
POP/ IMAP adalah teknologi yang memungkinkan penggunanya mengakses akun emailnya tanpa melalui Facebook. Akun email Facebook bisa jadi mengandung identitas akun Facebook (url Facebook@Facebook.com).
Dengan jumlah penggunanya yang lebih dari 350 juta dan 60 juta pengguna terhubung Facebook melalui Facebook Connect, tentu saja, Google, Yahoo, bakal gemetar dengan rencana layanan web email baru Facebook ini, bila nanti benar-benar terwujud.
Wah-wah pemain raksasa baru mulai berperang nih, kalau dulu yang sering antara google vs microsoft, sekarang ada pemain baru Facebook. Let’s see what will happen ….
We hear constantly about the importance of networking and even about the value of our network. We also hear that we need to nurture and care for our network. Although, the above statements are true, there is one critically important part of your network that has not been discussed.
Your network should be a reflection of who you want to be and what you want to do. If you are spending your time simply adding people that are just like you, then you will continue to get the same thing out of your network. This is a frequently overlooked piece of the networking puzzle. You need to be adding value to your network; not just names.
Have you ever heard the old adage that we are the average of our five closest friends? Basically this means that if three or more of your friends drive a Ford Taurus; you probably drive a Ford Taurus. The tendency is to live within the expectations of your Social Groups. Your network can operate on that same premise.
Before getting into your network goals and your growth strategy for your network it is important to understand the functions of a network.
What Are the Benefits That You Can Provide Your Network?
Before you can receive from your network; you must first be willing to give to your network. Some of the big questions are:
What can I give?
What effort will it take?
Is this going to take a lot of my time?
The first thing that needs to be done is for you to remove those questions from your mind. Concerning yourself with what is in it for you, is the wrong way to network. Your first concern must be your network, when you give your network the priority it deserves your rewards will come.
What Are the Benefits That Your Network Can Provide To You?
There are many things that one can give to their network including:
Time
Talents
Advice
Connections
Answers
Referrals
Recommendations
Appreciation
Introductions
Adulation
Recognition
Why is giving to your network important and what does it do for you?
These are some of the benefits you derive by giving to your network, listed in the order I perceive as being the most important.
Trust
Credibility
Reliability
Respectability
A brand
Demonstrate your willingness to share your knowledge
Demonstrate your interest in their wellbeing
Shows a caring mentality
Shows a sharing mindset
The list is not meant to be all inclusive, but it is meant to provide you with an idea as to what you can accomplish.
What Are Your Goals For Your Network?
To communicate effectively you should have an underlying purpose or goal for your network. Without a goal your communication will be unfocused and, therefore, ineffective. Because one of your goals should be to establish a brand it is important that your networking activities support that goal.
Your goals must include reaching most, if not all, of the objectives listed above. Those qualities elicit recommendations and referrals from your network which is your objective.
If you have defined your goals properly it should result in your building a network of people with whom you want to connect and, more importantly, who want to connect with you. A group that you want to be in contact with on a regular basis and a group that will be interested in your message. Once again, and I cannot stress it enough, it is critically important that you have a value to add to your network and that you have a reputation that encourages people to want to connect with you.
Just as there will be people that invite you where they will be the primary benefactor, this same thing can hold true with the people that you want to invite into your network. Be aware of that reality and approach your desired connection accordingly. That does not mean that you should not invite people where you appear to have nothing to offer, it just means you must approach it realistically.
What Is Your Growth Strategy for Your Network?
Now that we have addressed those issues; what is your growth strategy for your network? Who do you want to include and why? You must be looking at this from both giving and receiving perspectives.
Most networks include people where you will be able to provide to them, but the chances of their giving to you are limited. This may impact your decisions to invite, but should never impact your decision to accept an invite.
You may choose to decline an invite based upon other factors such as the invitee’s reputation, the types of people on the invitee’s connections, and there may be other factors. Just do not deny based upon what the individual can do for you.
Sometimes the only thing you might add to an invitee is your admiration for their accomplishments. Do not discount this factor; people like to hear that they are respected and admired for their accomplishments – just be sincere in the praise.
Conclusion
If you care for your network properly and continually add value; it will be your most valuable asset and road to your continued success.
I spend too much time distracted by facebook, blogs, cartoons, celeb gossip, nerf gun discussion boards, the internet. As such, I am making a change. It’s over facebook. It’s over between us. O facebook, I have been with you for more than five years and you’ve never let me down. So you need to know that you did nothing wrong. It’s not you… it’s me. You’re too much for me. You’ve got to much to offer the world and I can’t appreciate all you have to give. No – no – no… don’t say anything. I am going to take some time for myself and then we will reevaluate the whole situation. I don’t expect you to wait for me and I know you will change – you always were a free-spirited hellion. Goodbye.
Hi Joshua,
You have deactivated your Facebook account. You can reactivate your account at any time by logging into Facebook using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to.
Thanks,
The Facebook Team
So what now? I COMMAND+T; “f” still yields “www.facebook.com”. I’ve ended a long relationship with the social networking pest but I know i’ll go back. One day at a time, am I right?
My iPhone has really become an important aspect of my day-to-day routine. I posted updates to Twitter, update my status on Facebook, check my email, update my Calendar events, mark off my Task-list and use my voice to find a restaurant near me so I can make reservations for the night. It’s great.
I start my days off usually with a quick tweet or two from my iPhone twitter client Twittelator (free version available).
Once I’ve done that I scoot on to work, logging my arrival time into Momento, which is my daily journal app. It works great and I use it to log various conversations I’ve had throughout the day, and personal opinions on various items that pass through my desk… Opinions that can’t be voiced in a public forum due to job security. Another nice thing with Momento is that it connects to my facebook and twitter profiles, and pulls in my status and tweets from there, building a timeline I can follow at a later point in time. Posts that I make within Momento I can tag with various tags, include people and locations within it. Then at a later time, I can search through sort able tags to help find what I’m looking for. It works great
As I progress through the day I’ll obtain various new tasks I need to accomplish or complete, and I’ll log those into Pocket Information (Free version available). Pocket Informant connects with my Toodeldo account and synchronizes with it. Allowing me to take my tasks home and access them via my laptop while I work from home. Pocket Informant also synchronizes pretty well with my Google Calendar allowing me to create and manage my calendar events on the go. Since Google is my central repository anyway for all my email, documents, RSS fees and photo management, it’s nice that my apps all sync with Google and allow me to access my data everywhere I go.
As I get free time throughout the day I’ll try to spend some time reading my RSS feeds. The Google Reader works pretty well via a web browser on the iPhone, but I prefer to use MobileRSS (Free version available). It syncs with Google Reader and lets me send content to my Read It Later account (iPhone app available in Pro & Free), along with Instapaper, Delicious, Twitter, Facebook and Email. It supports Google Article sharing and comments as well, which makes it nice.
As the day comes to a close I post a few more updates to twitter and facebook (via the facebook app), make what ever adjustments I need to do with my events and tasks, and off to bed I go to start a new day tomorrow using the same apps again.
I love how the iPhone has allowed me to be more productive with less effort. I even import and manage my iPhone photo’s with Google’s Picasa and it’s a piece of cake.
Facebook’s Security Check now has a feature called “RUsure” which helps eliminate needless posts on Facebook fan pages.
The fan page admin can’t turn the feature on/off… it turns on automatically after 6 posts within a 24 hour time period and will only turn off after one of those posts receives 5 “likes” or 3 comments.
Gmail greeted me this morning with a new Buzz. The Gmail blog told the entire story of Google launching a yet another SOCIAL Feature called the Buzz. Google Buzz is among the very crucial moves which Google has been playing to sustain its dominance in the web especially the social web.
Google Buzz
The Buzz is a lifestreaming service more like the FriendFeed where all your activities on the various social sites get aggregated at one place facilitating a much broader picture of your digital echo. I won’t help you guys with the features, coz the video is easier to follow. Interesting again with the cartoon showing up in a google’s product launch similar to Google Chrome in 2008. What would make the Google Buzz even more competitive would be an integration of the Google Wave along with updates from Google groups and more socail sites into it. Facebook is not yet a Lifestreaming service, but they did acquire FriendFeed. (I am not still sure what their plans with FriendFeed are)
Facebook recently had its 6th anniversary and hit the 400 million user mark, But Google buzz will already start off with over a 150 million(approximately) user base owing to the fact that its built right into Gmail. What Google Buzz lacks is the all the social games that people play on Facebook. I guess once an API for the Google Buzz is out, it will go head on against Facebook. As yet it too early to say who will kill Facebook, but Google Buzz definitely has potential.
Google woke up to the Facebook and the Twitter challenge. Finally.
Google Buzz is the latest product from the Google family and its best attempt to build a social network after the early attempts like Orkut and Open Social saw marginal success.
To me Google Buzz looks like FriendFeed 2.0 (Facebook acquired FriendFeed last year) with its stream of updates, pictures, links from one’s friends. The biggest advantage that Google has in launching Buzz is that this is built into the Gmail application which already has over 175 million users. And Buzz is available on the iPhone and the Android as well.
Google is giving a lot of granular controls but the default social graph is based on the Gmail settings (mail recipients and senders of mail). Whether they indeed are actually the desired social graph for someone is something that I am not sure. For me, it surely is not!
Will Google win against Twitter with the Buzz? Twitter is simple and the tweets go to all the people who follow the tweet sender. “Buzzing” is not. There is a public and private buzz and this could make it complicated.
At first glance Google Buzz has a few advantages: It combines the best from Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook Connect, Flickr and a few others. It has nice email integration as they show up in the Inbox and as a tab within Gmail. It highlights items that friends like and share. You can read about the functionality here
The key challenge is how will Google square off against Facebook when Facebook introduces email. And whether Google Buzz will integrate with Facebook connect.
i like to think i’m a cultured sort of person, like if someone asked me what i did in my spare time i’d say reading fucking satre books and creating great works of art or something. but it’s not really true, i mean, i do those things sometimes, but mostly i spend my time like my sims character.
i was playing sims 3 on my iphone, and made this character called nina or something. basically she was the town bike. she also nearly died from no food or sleep. however she was being very social. this is sorta how i spend my days. but lately, you know, im sick of being the town bike. in fact, i never really liked it that much anyway. i thought id start blogging so i can keep track of my thoughts and boys and mind and if i am, where im going wrong.
fuck fuck fuck, got an email from my lawyer. i have to call him. and my mobile is going off. its optus again. its not my mobile. its my dads. my sim card is in it. my mobile won’t charge. i can’t do anything about it. dad gets shitty about me using his mobile. dad gets shitty about everything. he has, as the family shrink/s puts it, a history of anger management issues.
fuck being broke! fuck being single! fuck writing this blog no one will read. can’t find my fucking lawyers number.
i miss shoplifting. i’m soooo nervous about my court case! nervous! nervous. google lawyers number. room too messy, dont know where i put his contact card. fml.
i don’t want to get drunk or have sex anymore. but i’m seeing russel tonight, and we WILL fuck. have a bottle of jack in my bedroom. DO NOT BRUSH MY TEETH WITH IT. i hate you kesha. i hate you.
its because ive already fucked him, and he called me up and asked me to come over to his place tonight which is empty. and he doesn’t want me to meet his mother. yeah, im definitely just a fuck. apparently he never brings girls home, and his mum would freak. well, he didn’t have any condoms in his bedroom… read: excuse to do it unprotected. or not? god, i dont even trust men anymore.
got to go to scummy box hill tafe to meet up with friend then wait for russel to call so i can go to his awesome awesome house in canterbury. canterbury!!! his house is totally awesome boyfriend material, like a house whod i like a boyfriend to have. russell definitely not boyfriend, but has a house like one, so am getting somewhere perhaps. fucking optus is still texting me.
oh – why his house is awesome – good books/mags/walls… fuck! cause it looks ‘cultured’. why do i care? look, i dont want to date a stupid boy. ive done that before. its horrible. i hate it. i hate that i hate it. i hate that i have to break up with them and tell them its me, not you. its me, not you. its actually me. you can’t help it if youre stupid and senseless (enough to fall for me, when i won’t feel the same way). but whyyyyyyy.
im going on facebook too much! and my bedroom is a mess. what is wrong with me!!!
oh my god! this random indian guy called neelu sharma has been posting facebook videos that im tagged in as his statuses. fuck, so creeped out. REMOVE FROM FRIENDS.
shit, am late for late lunch date. be back soon. x
Everybody loves Facebook, right? Or at least almost 440 million active users, as of the latest stats available. That is, except big time professional advertising entities…
Before, during and after your event, blog about it. Blogging beforehand can alert others about your event and encourage them to learn more or register to attend.Live blogging during your event can create buzz and excitement for those who were unable to attend (and provide them a snippet of what they missed, which will encourage them to look for your next event). Blogging after can provide a recap, as well as info on upcoming events.
Don’t overlook the best real-time tool in social media for your event. Sending tweets out to your followers is a great way to keep everyone updated on what’s happening. Whether it’s an awards show where you can share the winners before journalists write about them, or a conference where you can tweet soundbites, Twitter is a great tool for connecting people online and offline to your event.
I recommend every business have a Facebook fan page. Marketing that page is a bit tricky because the domain name or URL is so long and ugly.
Timmy from Tacoma writes:
Menurut situs teknologi TechCrunch, diam-diam Facebook tengah menyiapkan fitur baru yang bakal menjadi andalan mereka: email gratis untuk facebooker.
