Professional Blog Service » social networks

Awesomize.me is Still The Awesome

Erik Deckers — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:51:02 +0000

I just got a very nice comment from Tatiana Sorabi from Awesomize.me very politely pointing out that I can be a big whiner at times. After my last post, Should I Cover Up the Name of No Bullshit Social Media?, Tatiana responded a couple days later with this very nice comment.

Erik, We are working on the issue. You jumped on this too quick. Your inquiry was forwarded to me last week. This was the first incident for us. We are still in startup phase and lacking resources.

To avoid ending up another myspace, we have put in place a strong policing system to keep the spammers and offenders away. We fully realize you are neither spammer nor offender. We are trying to come up with a solution how to separate your case with others. Once, the solution is in place, I send you a note.

Meanwhile, I encourage you to create a page for your company and book on our site. You can use the “Add Product” Template for your book.

So, I rescind my complaint, and will add my product for my book. AND I’ll rename my book to No Bullsh*t so they have plenty of time to work on their solution.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Content Rating : PG • Contributor : Tatiana Sorabi • Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service • Copyright Year : 2011 • Creator : Erik Deckers • Headline : Awesomize.me is Still The Awesome • Keywords : No Bullshit Social Media, censorship, books, publishing, social networks, awesomize.me • Mentions : Awesomize.me • Version : 1.0 •

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Should I Cover Up the Name of No Bullshit Social Media?

Erik Deckers — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:00:16 +0000

Should I Cover Up the Name of No Bullshit Social Media?

Update: Awesomize.me contacted me with a great response addressing this issue.

I wrote a book with a naughty word in the title.

My latest book, No Bullshit Social Media, which I wrote with my good friend Jason Falls, has generated surprisingly little controversy. It’s been placed cover out on all the shelves in all the Barnes & Noble bookstores. It was even on their New Arrivals shelf, top center, where everyone could see it.

Of course, there has been some controversy. I’ve given presentations where I had to refer to the book as “No BS.” One group asked that I not mention the book at all, and since they dealt with a lot of very conservative Christians, who would be attending the conference, I was fine with that. (I covered up most of the offending word, and kept the cover one the last slide of the slide deck though.)

I’m not ashamed of the title. I’m not sorry I did it. I understand that some people don’t like saying it, and I’m fine with that. If they want to call it No BS, they’re more than welcome to. I won’t tell someone to do something they’re not comfortable with.

But what’s bothering me today is a particular social network, awesomize.me is covering up the title of the book completely. In my bio, I included the title of my book, spelled out in all its 4 letter (8 letter?) glory.

However, the “no naughty words” algorithm covered up the word, and recast it as No @#$% Social Media.

This actually bothers me. I can’t tell you why. It’s not censorship, because awesomize.me is a private company, and they can do what they want. If they want to make a rule that says “no swear words,” then they’re free to do it.

But at the same time, I’m annoyed by the fact that on a social network made up of grownups, I can’t use a grownup word. Not in a gratuitous, shocking, let’s-make-everyone-giggle kind of a way. But in a this-is-a-real-book-title way.

The easy thing to do would be to just change the title of the book myself to “No BS Social Media,” or “No Bull***” or even “No Bullsh*t.” But I don’t want to. That’s not the name of the book.

Am I overreacting? Should I just toe the line and change the title of the book in my bio? Or should I stand firm on principle, and refuse to change it, even if it means that people are going to wonder what @#$% stands for?

What would you do?

About : No Bullshit Social Media and censorship • Accountable Person : Erik Deckers • Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Content Rating : PG-13 • Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service • Copyright Year : 2011 • Creator : Erik Deckers • Editor : Erik Deckers • Genre : Non-fiction • Headline : Should I Cover Up the Name of No Bullshit Social Media? • Keywords : No Bullshit Social Media, censorship, books, publishing, social networks • Mentions : Jason Falls • Publisher : Professional Blog Service • Version : 1.0 •

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10 Ways To Spot Bullshit In Social Media Vendors

Erik Deckers — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:00:30 +0000

10 Ways To Spot Bullshit In Social Media Vendors

My friend and writing partner for No Bullshit Social Media, Jason Falls, has an interesting take on what today’s social media hippies have in common with the early hippies of 1964.

In 1964, Beat Generation poet and newly-crowed author du jour Ken Kesey packed a merry band of friends into a van and led the group across the U.S. en route to the New York World’s Fair. Tripping on LSD most of the way, the Merry Pranksters sat out to enlighten America. Incredibly, though stopped by police on several occasions, according to a new documentary film about the journey called Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place, they were never arrested. Kesey’s friend Neal Cassady, who was the inspiration for Jack Kerouac’s On The Road protagonist Dean Moriarty, drove the bus and would fast talk his way around the law enforcement officers.

Remember, this wasn’t deep into the hippie era in the U.S. Some would argue this particular bus trip was the first real exposure to what hippies would become that much of America had ever seen. So when the police pulled the bus over, there wasn’t an automatic level of suspicion about pot or LSD or kids doing drugs. Besides, LSD was still legal then. The bus occupants were an eclectic bunch from California armed with movie cameras. “We’re making a movie,” was probably all the excuse Cassady needed to use to get around many unsuspecting law enforcement officers in that era.

Similarly, when social media’s early pioneers, only a few of whom I suspect of illegal drug use (joke), stood on their virtual pedestals and preached on and on about how the new world of marketing was all about conversation and engagement, many of us were razzle-dazzled by the potential of fulfilling the Cluetrain vision. Brands could become one again with the people. Perhaps even get on a bus, drink drug-laced Kool-Aid and enlighten the world.

While I didn’t live through the 60s, my parents were in the middle of it. Perhaps I am a direct result of them. Still, I wasn’t there. It’s hard for me to opine on what did or did not happen and why. But taking the pragmatists view that the grand bus trip that was the Beat and Hippie Generations was less about enlightenment and more about getting high, one can see the world of social media as less about enlightenment and more about playing online all day.

Okay, perhaps I’m being a bit snarky.

Like the police officers duped by Kesey’s merry band of Beats, businesses from the initial inklings of social media’s priests and prophets until recently have failed to see through the bullshit. Engagement, conversation, listening … all well and good, but where’s the other half of the equation? Where’s the money? Where’s the revenue? Where’s the business?

Certainly, there are dozens of companies who have seen the light, or gotten lucky with the opportunities, and have recorded social media successes. The Dells and Southwest Airlines of the world are to be commended for early adoption and visionary activation. But the vast majority of businesses are better trained cops. They still see social media as bullshit.

If only someone could convince business owners, small and large, marketing managers and the like that when you add the word “marketing” to the phrase “social media” it is not only about conversation and engagement, but also about business, the industry could continue to grow, perhaps more rapidly. Erik Deckers and I have (humbly) tried just that with our upcoming book No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing . In it we recognize the genuine and genuinely accurate recommendations of the purists. But we also see through the fast-talk, smoke screen.

It’s not about playing online all day. It’s not a virtual commune where we all get enlightened. It can be a market. And goods and services can be bought and sold there. Companies are welcome, but if they play by the rules of the road, as it were.

For many of the puritanical themes, Erik and I spot the bullshit. In order to help you do the same with the consultants, agencies and experts you’re dealing with as you navigate the road of social media enlightenment, here are some warning signs you might have a bullshit artist at play:

10 Ways To Spot The Bullshit In Social Media Vendors

It only takes them 15 seconds of the first answer to mention Twitter.
They talk continually about “conversation” “listening” and “engagement” but never define what those are or what it means for your company to practice them.
They fumble around, covering their tracks with ministerial-type rants about customer service when you ask them how social media can drive revenue.
They talk about “the rules” of social media marketing.
They only produce case studies everyone knows — Dell, Southwest Airlines, Comcast — and can’t cite local or small-business case studies readily.
Their references don’t include businesses they’ve activated a social media strategy or tactic for.
They talk of “building community” but focus the conversation on social networking software (Ning, Jive, etc.) rather than communications strategies that will foster community among your customers.
When you ask about your website or search engine results they say neither have anything to do with social media.
When you ask how they do market research they answer, “I use Google.”
Just as you get to the desire to reduce customer acquisition cost, their eyes glaze over and the check their phone for messages.

We’re sure you have more ideas on how to spot the bullshit. The comments are yours.

For a free chapter of No Bullshit Social Media, jump over to the book website and download away! While you’re there, be sure to pre-order your copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million or Que Publishing.

And order a couple extra for those bullshit-sensitive friends and clients. We’d be honored if you did.

Your pre-orders should arrive in late September.

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Three Secrets to Make Your Video Go Viral – A Warning to Corporations

Erik Deckers — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:00:50 +0000

Three Secrets to Make Your Video Go Viral – A Warning to Corporations

I’ve been digging into a lot of social media case studies lately, especially those that involve a little guy going up against a large corporation and winning the battle of public sentiment. A lot of these studies involve videos, and I think I’ve figured out the secrets to why they’re going viral, and why large companies need to watch out for these situations.

One of the most memorable videos is Dave Carroll’s “United Breaks Guitars,” which he released after United Airlines mishandled his $3,000 Taylor guitar. Carroll released a song and video about his efforts in filing a claim against United and all the hoops he jumped through for a year before anyone would even listen to him.

Ten million views and three videos later, Dave not only got his satisfaction from United, but Taylor guitars gave him two new guitars. His efforts also netted enough negative press against United to give an entire PR department heart failure.

Other videos have had similar success getting the attention of the corporate giants, and getting them to take notice and fix their problem. The same is true with blogs, tweets, and other times people have gotten punked by . And I’ve identified a few things they have in common.

Viral videos are not straightforward rants. There needs to be an unusual hook, or something that makes it different/better than someone staring at the camera and talking about their complaint or issue. That’s why videos that involve music or acting gain a lot more traction than that talking head video you wanted to do.
Viral videos include something humorous. Dave Carroll’s video was musical and funny. Other complaint videos are also funny, or have a humorous element to them. People love to be entertained, and anything that’s humorous will gain more attention than something that’s serious. (Of course, this doesn’t work about serious issues — just ask Groupon — so choose your humor carefully. And if you have to resort to humor that is guaranteed to offend part of your audience, don’t use it. You don’t want your audience hating you.)
Viral complaint videos are always about David going up against Goliath. This is the big secret. I have yet to see a viral complaint video about two Davids fighting it out, or two Goliaths duking it out. It’s always the little guy going up against the big guy. Whether it’s Dave Carroll (a real David) fighting against the uncaring, careless United Airlines, or Dooce complaining about her Maytag (not a video, but a great example of the little guy fighting the big guy), people always cheer for the little guy. If there’s any indication that the big guy is screwing someone, we’ll watch the video, read the blog post, and retweet the tweet in order to help get the word out about the “epic struggle.”

This last point is what corporations need to beware of. All it takes is one irate customer with some creativity and a Flip camera to make your PR people sweat blood trying to overcome the tens of thousands of views of that video and subsequent complaints, plus any negative press that came about from their video. Dave Carroll’s epic struggle was picked up by the global press, making sure the United name got plenty of mentions in the press.

Even for companies who don’t want to be on social media, they need to at least have a presence so they can monitor customer complaints. They shouldn’t be caught off guard by videos, because they’re already behind the 8-ball when it comes to social media. The little guy is ready to complain about the big guy, and everyone else is ready to support them and carry their torch for them.

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Six Reasons You Should NOT Feed Your Twitter Stream Into Your Facebook Stream

Erik Deckers — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:00:44 +0000

Six Reasons You Should NOT Feed Your Twitter Stream Into Your Facebook Stream

After yesterday’s post, Ten Signs You’re NOT a Social Media Expert, my friend Josh Husmann asked “Help me out! Why shouldn’t my twitter feed forward to Facebook?”

It’s a fair question, and it’s something I see a lot of people doing it. I even did it for a few weeks, until someone who wasn’t on Twitter told me to stop it. Here are six reasons you shouldn’t feed your Twitter stream into your Facebook stream.

Most of your Facebook friends aren’t on Twitter. They don’t understand #hashtags and @replies. Your Twitter messages that contain those will just be confusing and/or boring.
No one wants to read half a Twitter conversation, especially if they have no way of reading the other half.
If you also automate your blog feed to Facebook, then your Facebook friends will get hit with two messages about new blog posts.
If you’re trying to create an effective personal brand, then automating your feed will work against you. Take the time to write a custom message for both Twitter and Facebook.
Facebook status updates can hold a whole lot more than a tweet. Why limit yourself to 140 characters on something that gives you a few hundred?
Your Twitter audience is not necessarily your Facebook audience. Most of my Facebook network is made up of friends, family, people from high school and college, and people who live in the Indianapolis area. But they are not necessarily social media or PR people that I work with. A good number of my tweets are about business, social media, etc., and while I don’t mind sharing personal information with my Twitter stream, I don’t want to bother my personal stream with work information.

My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available on Amazon.com, as well as at Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy.

Photo credit: NathanGibbs (Flickr)

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How To Turbocharge Your LinkedIn Profile

Mike Seidle — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:00:41 +0000

How To Turbocharge Your LinkedIn Profile

Web pages are useless without traffic, and the same is true about LinkedIn profiles. It doesn’t matter if you are looking for new customers, a job or just more connections, no traffic = no opportunity. Here’s a simple strategy I used to increase the traffic to my LinkedIn profile page from 3-4 people per day to 70-80 people per day (that means 27,000+ visits in a year). Feel free to make it your own:

Step 1: Figure out what your goal is with your LinkedIn Profile.

This isn’t that hard. Your LinkedIn profile is a resume with a couple of places you get to be creative, and there are really only a few practical uses for LinkedIn. Most likely your goal is one of these four:

Finding New Customers
Finding a Job
Expanding your Network
Recruiting people

Step 2: Make your summary do something.

Your summary is the block of text that goes right below your vital stats on your LinkedIn profile page. You can put four or five pages of text there, and you can say whatever you want. Most people use it to talk about how great they are. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to change our summary into something that grabs people’s attention and gets them to take action. That means we’re going to talk about our visitor’s favorite person in the world: our visitor. In other words, we’re going to tell people “what’s in it for them”.

The key, according to LinkedIn guru Flyn Penoyer is to make your summary be about the reader. That means you are going to use the word “you” a lot, Here are the most common goals for LinkedIn, and what you can do with your summary:

Your Goal	Strategy for Profile Page	Call to Action
Find new customers.	Show what you can do for visitors and invite visitor to engage.	Refer to your website, ask for an email or LinkedIn connection.
Get a Job/Gig	Explain what you can do for a potential employer. Use “your company” a lot.	Ask for contact via LinkedIn or email.
Get More Connections	Explain why people should connect with you	Connect with me.
Find Employees	Explain the opportunity, why a candidate should be interested.	Invite a connection, invite to website, or invite visitor to submit LinkedIn profile.

Step 3: Change Your Professional Headline

Note: This is the most important step, but you’ll look like an idiot if you don’t do steps 1 and 2 first.

Right now, your professional headline (the one line ad for yourself that goes next to your picture) probably says something about you like “Innovative Sales Leader” or “Customer Acquisition Guru”. While this makes you look good, it doesn’t engage people who see your profile, and if it’s to braggy or buzz word riddled, it probably acts more like opportunity repellent. Since the professional headline shows up everywhere you do, right next to your picture, we’re going to make it drive people to click on your profile and learn more. So, out with the “Foremost Change Agent and Project Manager” and in with “I can make your project finish on time and 10-25% under budget. Visit my profile to find out how.” (Oops. I just clicked on your profile). Here’s what I did with mine:

Before

After

The results: I’m getting 10-20x more visits to my profile page every day.

Tying it Up

So, we’ve changed our summary so it tells our visitors what’s in it for them and called them to take action. Then we changed our professional headline into a powerful invitation to view our profile page (where the summary lives). Now it’s time to get the word out. This is the best part. All you have to do is participate on LinkedIn. When you post a message in a group, ask a question or send messages to other LinkedIn users, your headline is right next to your picture… click.

Mike Seidle

Mike Seidle is currently the CTO of Virtual Payment Systems, Inc, and is a one of the founders of Professional Blog Service. Mike currently serves on Professional Blog Service’s board of directors.

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Success Isn’t Showing Up, It’s Sticking Around

Erik Deckers — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:58:30 +0000

Success Isn’t Showing Up, It’s Sticking Around

“80% of success is just showing up.”

I’ve been thinking about Woody Allen’s quote for the last few hours, after a rousing night at the relaunch of Social Media Club Indy. We heard Jason Falls speak, and I got a chance to hang out with him and a few other people at Yats Cajun Creole restaurant afterward.

Jason Falls models his new t-shirt. That's me behind him.

I think Woody only got it half right. You can show up all you want, but if you don’t stick around, you’re missing out.

It was a lot of fun to just sit and talk about connections, past relationships, families, search engine optimization secrets, and food. I learned where the New York and Boston accent comes from. I learned a secret about Twitter lists. And I got a nice big plate of chili cheese etouffee with crawfish thanks to Duncan Alney and Joe Vuskovich (owner of Yats).

I’ve been writing and talking about the importance of face-to-face networking as a part of personal branding a lot lately. And last night, I realized that success isn’t just showing up, it’s sticking around.

It’s sticking around for dinner or drinks after the main event. Not to pick someone’s brain, but to share ideas, talk about family, tell stories, and learn more about each other. (Keith Ferrazzi talks about this a lot in Never Eat Alone (affiliate link). It’s my new networking bible.)

If I want to build solid relationships with people I trust and who trust me, I need to spend time with them after special events, not during.

If I want to build solid relationships, I can’t do it in a crowded room with people who only have a few minutes to talk.

If I want to be a valuable resource, I can’t shout advice over a loud crowd and louder music.

I need to hang out with people in a quiet place. The best place to do it is when everyone is happy, excited, and talkative. The best time to do it is after the big event that got people talking excitedly.

Unfortunately for those who didn’t stick around, they missed out on this opportunity. By not sticking around, they missed the chance for deepening relationships that lead to bigger success.

Now, I completely understand why people had to go. They have families to see and take care of. They have work that needs to get done. They have personal lives that mean they can’t stay out until 10:30. I don’t blame them, because 9 times out of 10, I do too. I don’t stick around because I haven’t seen my family since the night before, or I’ve got a client deadline the next day. I couldn’t even stick past 10:30 for drinks, because I had to finish a presentation.

However, there are times that I get to do it, because my family understands my insatiable need to talk with people about things I’m passionate about. And those are the times that I see my personal brand and my relationships leap ahead. (Of course, my family couldn’t care less about whether I’m a big deal to other people. I’m a big deal to them, and that’s who gets most of my attention. So for those who had to leave, I totally support you.)

But if you can arrange it once or twice, stick around. Be the last one out the door, and talk to the event organizers who are sticking around to hang out with the Big Name From Out Of Town. Stick around, and join them for drinks or dinner. You’d be amazed at what will come your way as a result.

So success does come from showing up. Anyone who came and met someone new last night was successful (and will be moreso if they can follow up with some one-on-one networking). But the bigger success, for me, came from sticking around just a little while longer.

Photo credit: Andy Huston

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5 Signs You Suck at Twitter

Erik Deckers — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:00:36 +0000

5 Signs You Suck at Twitter

I’ve been playing around with Friend Or Follow over the last few days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people suck at Twitter.

Friend Or Follow is a Twitter tool that shows people you’re following, but aren’t following you; people who follow you, but you’re not following; and people you have a mutual followship with.

I dumped over 500 people from my Twitter account this week with FOF. I checked out each account I unfollowed, and frankly, some of you people are just doing it wrong. That’s why I unfollowed you. Not sure if this includes you? Then check out the…

Five signs you suck at Twitter.

You claim to be a social media consultant/pro/expert/guru (CPEG), but your following to follower ratio is 10:1. That is, you’re followed by 5,000 or more people, but only following 500. Social media consultants looove to say “have conversations with people.” But shouldn’t people who truly value conversation be willing to, I don’t know, have them?. Or at least fake like you are? If you’re a CPEG, you should have a ratio fairly close to 1:1. This is not to say that everyone should have a 1:1 ratio. Just the CPEGs. (Pro tip: you’ll also have more than 200 followers. I’m just sayin’.)
Nearly every one of your tweets is some motivational or inspirational message. Why do I need to get ten motivational messages peppered throughout the day? If it didn’t help me at 8:30 — 29 minutes after your HootSuite-scheduled “Good morning, my tweeps! Make this an excellent day!” — then it’s not going to help me at 9:30, 10:30, and so on. Don’t regurgitate someone else’s cleverness, show me yours. If you really want to motivate me, tell me about the cool stuff you’re doing.
You’re trying to amass as many followers as you can. If you’re a celebrity, a public figure, or someone who’s really, really interesting, that’s great. If you grew your network through hard work and earned those followers, more power to you. But if you resort to computer scripts, trickery, and joining follower-building networks to boost your rankings, then stick with being a LinkedIn LION. Twitter is not a competitive sport. Despite what you’re already doing to LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter isn’t just one more race to the bottom of mediocrity and uselessness.
Your Twitter bio has the words “money,” “fast,” and “make” in it. I spam-block every single person whose bio says they have some money making system they want to share with me. Stick to peddling penis drugs and fake watches by email.
Your time between tweets can be measured with a calendar. You don’t have to tweet many times a day, but at least once a day wouldn’t kill you. Even every other day would be fine. But when you’re only tweeting every 3 – 4 weeks on a regular basis, then Twitter isn’t a communication tool, it’s an afterthought, like calling your mom the day after Mother’s Day.

What is your Twitter pet peeve? What sort of annoying behavior have you seen?

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5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use

Erik Deckers — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:00:16 +0000

5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use

Yesterday, I talked about the 5 Reasons Why Travel & Tourism Destinations Need Social Media, and how social media is being used by more and more people than you may have realized.

Social media helps people share news about their lives with their friends and family. Not only are they telling people they went on vacation, they’re able to show them where they went, what they did, and all the good times they had. They’re especially doing it on the photo and video sharing sites. Here are fives sites you should use to promote your own travel and tourism destination.

YouTube (VIDEO)

What it is: This is the website everyone knows when it comes to video sharing. According to one source, there are 1,500 years worth of videos on YouTube right now. But that’s because they make it so easy.
Get started:Go to YouTube.com and set up your account. If you already have a Google account of some sort (Gmail, iGoogle, Google Docs), you already have an account, because Google owns YouTube. Start finding other friends and guests by importing your email address book. Then follow the instructions to upload your videos.
Strategy: Encourage guests to upload their own videos and tag your destination in it. (This helps you get found for any searches on YouTube.) Upload your own videos (regular or HD) and embed them in your blog or link to your Facebook account.

Vimeo (VIDEO)

What it is: Vimeo is another video sharing site that’s not nearly as big as YouTube. The benefit to you is that you get to be a bigger fish in a bigger pond. According to their website, it was originally “. . . created by filmmakers and video creators who wanted to share their creative work, along with intimate personal moments of their everyday life,” so there tends to be more of an artsy feel to it, but you’re not limited to only being a filmmaker or artist.
Get started: Go to Vimeo.com and set up an account. Import your email address book (Google or Yahoo), and make connections with your guests.
Strategy: Same as Facebook. If your guests use Vimeo, encourage them to upload videos and tag your destination in it. Upload your regular and HD videos, and then use the embed code to place them in your blog or link to your Facebook account.

Flickr

What it is: Flickr is one of the two most popular photo sharing sites. In fact, by strict definition, it’s a social network centered around photo sharing (actually, all the video and photo sharing tools are considered social networks). You upload your photos and share them with your friends, embed them in blog posts, and link to them in Twitter messages.(Note: Flickr has begun accepting 90 second videos for uploading. While they won’t give YouTube a run for their money, they are making it easier for Flickr fans to keep their video in one place too.)
Get started: If you already have a Yahoo account, you have a Flickr account. Otherwise, sign up, import your email address book, and then start uploading photos. If you have an iPhone or Android, you can also upload photos directly to Flickr from your phone. There is also a digital camera storage card called the Eye-Fi that will not only store your photos, but upload them whenever you’re in a wifi hotspot.
Strategy: Hold a best photo contest and encourage guests to upload the photos to Flickr and Picasa (next section), and then embed the photos in the comments section of your website or your Facebook page.. Post the entries to your website, and allow voting for the best photo (use SurveyMonkey.com). Use the best photo(s) on your promotional materials. Also, consider using a Creative Commons license with your photos (this lets other people use your photos as long as they give you credit), and let them use photos that link back to your Flickr page.

Picasa

What it is: Another photo sharing site, but this one is owned by Google. I like Picasa a little more because it’s easier to integrate with a Blogger blog, plus they have different paid subscription levels. You can get 20GB for $5, or 200GB for $50.
Get started: If you have a Gmail account or a YouTube account, you’re all set. Otherwise, go to picasaweb.google.com Next, go to Picasa.com and download the Photo Uploader. This will let you upload photos in batches, rather than a few at a time.
Strategy: First, don’t worry about whether you can upload videos to Picasa, because you can also use YouTube. (Remember, they’re both owned by Google.) Next, just like with Flickr, hold a photo contest, and use the best photos in your promotional material. And consider using a Creative Commons license with your Picasa photos.

Facebook

What it is: The biggest social network in the world. We talked about it previously.
Get started: Hopefully you already started a Facebook account, but if not, go to Facebook.com and start an account. Get comfortable with it and then start a business page (what they used to call a “Fan Page”) for your own business. Invite friends to “Like” your business page, and do it more than once (people need reminding).
Strategy: While this won’t be the hub of your social media campaign, it needs to be a major part of it. Facebook will have more of your guests and customers on it than any other social network. This is where you need to push a lot of your marketing message, which will drive people back to your main website or blog.

Where should you start?

While there is a chicken and egg question about whether you should join social networks first or start with photo and video sites, it ultimately doesn’t matter. It will take a few days to get everything ramped up. Focus on one video site and one photo site. Pick the one you like the best, and the one that is easiest to use, and just start using it.

At the same time, pick the social network you want to start on (I recommend Facebook, since that’s where everyone is), and work on that one as well. You’ll ultimately spend more time on Facebook than you will on your photo and video sites, so consider these sites as supporting sites for your social network.

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5 Reasons Email Is NOT Going Away. I Don’t Care What Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Says

Erik Deckers — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:41:05 +0000

5 Reasons Email Is NOT Going Away. I Don’t Care What Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Says

Email is NOT going away.

South African blogger Arthur Charles Van Wyk thinks Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg is just a bit crazy when she says that email is going to die off, because only 11% of teens are using email these days. (You can watch the video below.)

Email is not obsolete. Not yet, anyway.

The premise is an interesting one: if you want to figure out what kind of consumer technology we’ll be using in several years, look at what the teens are using right now. And the teens aren’t using email, they’re using SMS on cell phones, or they’re using social networks like Facebook.

Does this mean that we will all write in text speak? Will sexting become an appropriate form of communication?

I don’t care what anyone says. Email is not, NOT NOT going to die off. Here are 5 reasons email is not going away:

Email is widely used in the business world. We’ve got so many companies using it, it’s never going to be dislodged, at least not in my lifetime. Until someone finds an easier way to transfer large documents and files only to specific individuals, it’s going to be the communication tool of choice. Can you see corporations — many of whom were reluctant to start letting people get email addresses and Internet access in the first place — dropping a tool that they fought against adopting? They’re still using fax machines, for God’s sake! So, sure teenagers aren’t using it now, but wait until they get assimilated into the corporate collective. They’ll be forced to use it whether they want to or not.
How do you get notified when you get a new friend, get tagged in a photo, have someone comment on your status update? Right now it’s by email. Do you really want your phone to buzz every time someone wants to be your Farmville friend on Facebook, or responds to someone else’s status update? While everyone likes their mobile phones, getting buzzed by an abundance of social network messages is going to get tiresome.
Our mobile phones can only hold so many texts. I have emails from 5 years ago that I still need to keep, but I can’t say the same for text messages. But if I did what happens if my cell phone gets too full? And then what if I lose it? Sure, those things can be saved in the cloud, but that’s where my email messages are anyway. Plus, my emails are easier to organize and search for.
Mobile phones and text messages are not ideal for important communications. While email may be less formal than, say, a certified letter, it’s more formal than a text message. What kind of damage are you doing to your personal brand if you tell a potential employer, “just text me,” especially if you’re someone who got a cell number that spells a naughty word? Or what if you got a job offer (or didn’t)? Do you want to get “Dude, u r not hired. Sry. Better luck nxt time” from an employer? Communicating with people who will be important to your life needs to be done in a way that’s more dignified than a cell phone.
Email is free, text messaging is not. I have to pay $10 every month to get unlimited texting, but my Gmail account is free. Admittedly neither cell phones nor computers are in every home in this country, but while text messages still cost money — even though they cost the cell carriers nothing to send (don’t get me started on that!) — it’s going to be a barrier for people to adopt it wholesale around the country

Email may not be the communication tool of choice, but it’s not going anywhere. And while SMS will become more prevalent in this country, I don’t believe it’s going to kill email, and I think people who say so are doing it for shock. We haven’t even killed postal mail, and yet the hip thing to do is to declare the death of free mail?

Kill off postal mail first, and then I’m more likely to believe you.

Photo credit: Jparise (Flickr)

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