Retweet That Link Up

This one should be pretty self-explanatory. You need to start focusing on when the best time to send out a tweet with a relevant link is for your demographic. I’m following the understanding that you’ve already created a decent amount of relevant followers. Now you need to know when they are most active on Twitter. This may take some time to figure out but then make sure your content is Tweeted out during those times. Asking for a retweet usually nets more retweets than not asking for one as well. Also concise wording allowing for ease of retweeting is another factor you have to think about.

Don’t Write Fluff

You can probably name some big name in your field. I’ll bet you they have created some great content. It is one thing to hash out some fluff, but an entirely different proposition to take the time and research to make excellent informative pieces. Additionally, if the person is able to keep a solid rhythm of up-to-date content you’ll be a step ahead. If you’ve already got that part down the next step is really integrating the same kind of content from your blog onto social media sites. Take the time to respond to followers on Twitter, release informative links and content on Facebook, take the time to post and answer questions on Quora. These should be natural extensions of your site and should reflect the same kind of standard you have on your site.

Flesh Out Your Profiles

The more you actively create a fleshed out profile the more human you’ll seem out on Social Media networks. That personalization is the thing that separates you from all the other individuals out there. You, usually, have very little space to tell people about yourself, or your company, so pick your wording carefully. I also see a decent number of people that forget to put links in their profiles. Before hand I mentioned that these Social Networks are an extension of you and your site, why wouldn’t you want that SM traffic the ability to go to your site where you have more freedom and space to truly tell people about yourself and your services? Lastly, I recommend sticking with the same photo across all SM platforms. As your reputation rises in your field that photo will become synonymous with who you are and what you represent.

Don’t Worry What The Cool Kids Think (Reputation across SM outlets)

Not too long ago people would judge certain people across SM outlets by the number of followers, or likes, a person had. Trust me it might be great to have 100,000 people following you, but if the majority of those people are spam bots or irrelevant to your business that number is pretty worthless. Focusing on providing great insight, being conversational with individuals that are leaders in your industry, and following/interacting with a core group of people is the key to success. Instead of worrying about your Klout score when starting out, worry about putting hard work into providing information to your demographic and distributing properly. The more work you put into that aspect the easier it will be to generate a great reputation on SM networks.

Have any other tips, suggestions, or disagreements about this article? Leave a comment.

A small Search Engine, manned solely by Gabriel Weinberg which launched in 2008, has recently launched the aggressive campaign stating “Google tracks you.  We don’t”. Weinberg, who is still the sole operator, makes a pretty strong claim but it still remains to be seen if the general public truly cares enough about their privacy to move away from the largest search engine. DuckDuckGo’s privacy policy is chock-full of information regarding the importance of search and how privacy should play a greater role to users. Ongoing discussions about privacy regarding social networking sites like Facebook are addressed but search engine privacy is  often overlooked.

Google has recently offered the ability to opt out of Google Analytics with a browser plugin , but unless the currently casual Internet user actively seeks it out they would never know about the option.  As more consumers raise  privacy concerns, DuckDuckGo may have a shot at becoming an outlier site with some clout.  Blekko and DuckDuckGo recently entered into a partnership.  As people’s tastes evolve there may cease to be just one colossal Search Engine in several years.

We’ll be using our NuRelm Flikr account so you can check out how we’re battling cancer one mustache at a time. Have you decided to jump on the Movember train? Send us your pictures of being a dapper gent. Want to donate to the cause? You can do so at our Movember Team page. The person that donates the most this week can dictate which mustache I should grow.

Want to jump on in and start being a mustachioed man about town? Here is the Movember F&Q to get you up and running. Hope to see you hanging with us on Flikr and drop us a line below to chat or encouraging mustache growing words.

Type in the query “Facebook firing” in Google. Go ahead I’ll wait. Surprised at the amount of people terminated because of their actions on a social networking site? I sure as Hell was. Firings of individuals posting on Twitter or Facebook has happened multiple times. Lots of average people being canned for what they thought was personal ranting.

People feel comfortable posting any type of content, believing that their message is only viewable to close friends and family. Sadly, those posts are the equivalent of a sandwich board and megaphone on a street corner. As a business it’s important to also monitor what your employees are doing online. An unhappy customer expressing his/her concerns is bad enough, but no matter how you look at it, negative comments from an employee just look horrible.

The line between what is private and what is public online is getting increasingly blurry. Therefore I’m going to throw this out Real Talk style. Below I’m going to outline what you, as an individual and as a business, should do to protect yourself in the digital jungle.

For the Individual:

So you’ve had a tough day at Crappy Job, Inc and decide to go home and release a little steam on the ole Facebook. Sadly there might be consequences depending on the context and perceived intent of any posting you do. Don’t think your job is worth monitoring? Everyone from business professionals to waitresses have been fired. So what steps can you take to maintain your opinion and job?

Set up Privacy Settings:

This might work out the same as trying to create a submarine with mesh wiring; still it’s a step that should be completed. Facebook is generally known for its lax behavior when it comes to maintaining security standards. Knowing that setting up privacy settings is the equivalent to locking a door in a glass house, they should still be done because it will keep the computer illiterate and lazy away from your information. Still, once you realize how public a forum like Facebook is you will, hopefully, be more reserved in your posting.

Do not show employer information

Creating some distance between you and your employers might be a path you deem appropriate. If your job does not require you to have a web presence, then not posting your information provides a nice disconnect between your personal and professional life. However, employers have still fired employees over content they wrote about on social networking sites without actually naming their employer. Social Networking is a lot like the Wild West at this point. The laws are gray and a lot of the land is unregulated. Thus I will state, once again, that social networking sites are pretty transparent and even if you do not state specifics about an employer you might still be soliciting a pink slip. This step is pointless if you have set up and maintain a Linkedin account. See where I’m going with this?

Be aware

I realize that I am starting to get a little repetitive. Good. The more aware you are that most employers are, or will be, monitoring what you do and say on these sites will allow you to effectively judge how you want to be viewed. The best approach is to structure your online persona in a professional manner while making sure to never divulge any information about your job. The actions you take on these sites will reflect your current standing at your job and in the future with other potential employers.

For Businesses

Instate an Online Privacy Policy:

By clearly outlining appropriate practices in relation to online behavior you will eliminate any gray areas that may arise. These policies should be an extension of your normal Business Conduct Guideline made applicable to the online world. Spell out common sense when presenting information as well as specific issues that may only occur in your company or industry. You cannot stop individuals from posting and contributing to content online, but by setting up fair guidelines that promote online use your company can help to create a better online presence through your employees. IBM has set up an excellent Online Privacy Policy entitled Social Computing Guidelines which is worth emulating.

Set up a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard

If you do not already have a dashboard you should regardless of your employees’ actions. The ability to see how your brand and company is doing online is crucial to understanding your market while quickly responding to any problems customers may have expressed through online means. Setting up a dashboard is easy and can be set up within a few hours. Setting up a specific feed to follow all employees that write blogs is another step a business can take to monitor employees’ adherence to the Online Privacy Policy your company has instated.

Whether you are an individual or company, understanding the importance of the relationship between the two online personas is crucial. If done properly a company will be able to leverage their employees into a cohesive online unit with multiple interests all following a detailed Online Privacy Policy. Understanding that current/potential employers often use these sites to make hiring/firing decisions will allow you to create a professional web presence of which you can be proud.

The hash tag allows multiple users that aren’t normally connected to instantly follow a specific term they are interested in as long as the term is started with a hash tag. This allows you to follow specific conversations with people you wouldn’t normally follow, or jump in on a campaign to help raise money, something like #Tweetsgiving or #CharityWater. Below I’ll show you how you can quickly start utilizing hash tags to fully flesh out your Twitter time.

Start your own Twitter Sessions:

You can set up a conversation between multiple Twitter users happening in real time solely on Twitter. Usually these conversations center around a specific issue and last for a short time. It’s a great way to get a lot of insight from individuals you wouldn’t normally have access to or associate with.
Many of these Twitter conversations use a specific hash tag to include in your post so everyone following that hash tag will know what you added to the discussion. Usually informal, it’s a great way to initiate the first level of networking and oftentimes will lead to followers that may be pretty influential, especially if you’re involved in a discussion that deals with any form of technology or social media. It’s also a good way of determining who the big shots in your industry are on Twitter. If you’re going to want to set up your own Twitter discussion first make sure the hash tag you want to use isn’t already in heavy rotation so you only receive individuals who want to be in on the discussion.

Follow Up-to-date News:

Twitter has become one of the quickest ways to initially learn of any important news that has just occurred. It wouldn’t be practical to try and follow everyone on Twitter, but hash tags commonly pop up and you can search for specific hash tags on the Twitter site. They also display a field called “Trending Topics” encompassing the most used hash tags at the moment. Simply start following the hash tag and you’ll have up-to-date info on a number of subjects.

Get Metrics on Popular Terms:

Hash tags commonly rise and decline in popularity quickly, but a select few can remain around a bit longer. Tracking these terms can be especially important if they deal with your brand in any way. Several sites allow you to track metrics on Twitter while hashtag.org specifically allows you to search and track hash tags. By understanding what your core group of users are interested in and what hash tags they are following you can easily send out relevant content to a larger number of interested individuals than just your follower count. This can help individuals to follow links that can be directed to content such as your website and also can help to raise the number of followers you have.

Hash tags are just another component of the Twitterverse and after you’ve got the basics down you’ll be sending out even greater relevant tweets that your customer base will truly enjoy. Have anything you do in a specific way on Twitter? Let me know below in the comments section, and stay posted for more in the Twitter Power series in the following weeks.

The emergence of portable technology combined with the explosion of social networking sites has brought the general populace to a definitive epoch of how proper social interaction is determined. Despite not being listed in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Internet addiction has been formally recognized by the American Psychological Association.

The problem with attempting to determine the facets of addiction centers on several large areas that are difficult to properly regulate; for one, an addiction is normally considered to cause deviant behavior.
The problem, then, is if a large amount of individuals begin to display this behavior can it be considered addiction or natural progression to revolutionizing the way we interact as humans?

Since the current Nielson results project that one in two Americans will have a smart phone by Christmas, I’m going to make the assumption you’re reading this via mobile or much more likely during work hours. If you have a smartphone, and you’re like me, you’ll come to realize how much time you spend checking emails, surfing the Web, and generally ignoring your girlfriend while eating dinner.

Before the ability to access the Internet via mobile devices it was easier to determine if you were spending too much time “plugged in”. Now with the ability to plug in anywhere with a mobile phone the ability to track how much a person truly spends online is harder to pin down. Normal users don’t see the harm in checking email or logging into Facebook through their phones, but it raises a concern that we cannot let go of the Web, even when we’re away from our monitors.

The impulse to continually check email or update one’s Facebook status has become a normal part of daily life. Scientists have begun to take notice of the way a person’s mind could begin to change as a result of our biggest modern obsession. The prognosis is certainly interesting if not a little unsettling.  Susan Greenfield, a British neuroscientist, has stated, “At the beginning of the 21st Century, we may be standing on the brink of a mind-makeover more cataclysmic than anything in our history”.

Greenfield continues by stating, “The science and technology that is already becoming central to our lives will soon come to transform not just the way we spend each day, but the way we think and feel.”
I feel that I am not alone in saying that I feel lost without my phone beside me. I feel a desolate disconnection to the world without it, and yet feel trapped at times with the transparency social networks have thrust upon us. I’m not alone; the amount of time spent on Facebook each month has continually risen with the results for January 2010 equaling an average of 7 hours a month, up from 5 hours in August 2009. The amount of time people spend on the social networking giant equals more time than Yahoo, Gmail, YouTube, MSN, Wikipedia, and Amazon combined.

We as a culture are committing more time to online social networking than we are to old fashioned in-person social endeavors. The vision of a giant brain with withered limbs comes to mind! Is that where we’re headed? As the obesity problem worsens, and as we become even more sedentary than the advent of TV has made us, what will the human race look like as evolution takes hold?

Not only does our online social networking ability allow us to be highly selective when choosing who to associate with, it can ultimately leads to issues with normal social interaction. Back before computers it was much more difficult to isolate ones self and to choose who you could and could not interact with. This caused a person to learn how to adapt to different personalities, but now a person can actively choose to only interact with similar personality traits.

Some studies say that the ability to learn social graces declines with the extensive use of technology. Ultimately you have individuals never learning how to properly interact with multiple personality types. Could it be why autism is on the rise? Probably not, but there is no disputing that online socializing is causing an intrinsic shift in how we interact with each other and the world around us.

For the past several centuries the rise of technology has been fueled by the desire to acquire an empire. Outward expansion continued throughout the Industrial Age. The inventions that came out of empire building gave humankind a base on which to build steam engines, automobiles, and finally airplanes.

Most of the world is now mapped and explored and so the desire to expand has grown inward. The Internet has transformed our world into one of digital images, information, and Web-based social interaction. Only time will tell if this is for the best or if we’re slowly losing grasp of the world around us.
What do you think, is this a natural progression we’ve seen before through other centuries (like with the advent of TV) or a detrimental dependence on technology that, in the long term, will be devastating to our progression? Let me know what you think in the comment section below.

Viruses happen, drivers crash, and often a system reinstall has to be completed. If you are not prepared for such a moment you are likely to lose everything that resides on your computer. Many of you might be saying, “Jordan I’m fine, I have an external hard drive. Everything is going to be A-Okay”. Well fellow Web travelers, it is time to throw away your parachute pants along with that external hard drive. It’s 2010.

External hard drives are great when a disaster only befalls your computer but what happens in a fire or a ninja home invasion? That’s why I will be breaking down four cloud based back-up services that I think you just might fancy.

You have a 9 out of 10 chance of ninja attack

Without getting technical, cloud based computing basically means any service that is based specifically on utilizing the Internet for shared resources, software, and information. Therefore, even if those crafty ninja’s manage to make away with both your PC and external hard drive, all your information will still be stored online safely. Here are four services that are ninja proof.

Aside from sporting an awesome website, Box.net has been around for quite awhile. The service allows you 1GB for free and up to 15GB for $19.99 a month for personal users. They also offer higher pricing lists for businesses. The nifty thing about Box.net is that it supports a slew of third party integrations within your files – everything from Gmail to Twitter.

Additionally, Box.net allows multiple users to pass files back and forth with multiple security features for admin. They even have a reporting feature that allows you to audit the files on Box.net from uploads, downloads, logins, etc to see if Johnson really is on top of those T.P.S. reports.

Dropbox might be the most well known out of all the cloud based services. The main allure of Dropbox is how incredibly easy it is to use. Dropbox allows up to 2GB for free with upwards of 100 GB for $19.99 a month. It does install a small program on your PC but you will not notice any change to performance on your computer.

Another great feature is the ability to create public folders which allow families and friends to see anything you put in said public folder. Trip to Bermuda? Forget the constant emails and just pluck it down in the Dropbox Public folder. You as the user also have the ability to monitor who can and cannot view your public folder.

The beta Windows Live Sync is the love child of LiveMesh and the original Windows Live Sync. The two previous programs were so similar that they decided to merge the two together this year. Sync can be downloaded alone or within the Windows Essentials package. Basically Essentials is the shabang for Windows 7 encompassing photo, video, mail, etc into one organized package.

Sync does pretty much everything that Dropbox and Box.net do, but only Vista and Windows 7 users are invited to the party. Sync allows up to 2GB of free storage.

Not to be confused with the evil language learning creature for children –Muzzy. Mozy comes out the gate with the trend of 2GB free storage, but the awesome thing about Mozy it that they allow you to pay only $4.95 a month for unlimited storage. Instead of paying for space you are not using Mozy grows as you put more items in.

You can also regulate how much bandwidth you want to dedicate to Mozy, allowing you to run the heavy machinery when you need without impediment.

Yo soy completely terrified of Muzzy

It looks like everyone is jumping into the cloud, and to protect all of the valuable memories and information on your computer it looks to be a pretty easy choice. If there are any other services that you prefer over those I mentioned please let everyone know in the comments section.

If you weren’t out grilling and enjoying the suppressive heat of the summer you might have already heard the news through TechCrunch on Saturday about Google, not Google Ventures, investing over 100 million dollars to Zynga for the secretive and upcoming Google Games launch. If you’re unfamiliar with Zynga they are the company responsible for crippling middle aged women’s lives.

Yes they are the creators of Farmville. The move is odd considering Zynga’s closely intertwined with Facebook. Still the ability to contend with Facebook, something Google has wanted to do for awhile, is probably why Zynga has already raised around a half billion dollars. With that kind of capital you can be sure Google is ready to take a stab at the social media market.

Despite the haughty nature of Zynga’s past discretions, Google stands to generate a decent amount in the first quarter of 2011, projected sales for Zynga alone are 1.0 billion. With the ability to have users logged in to play games will allow Google to begin tracking data that previously was only possible by Facebook. A huge amount of people, 15 million unique visitors in May alone, are invested in these games and continue coming back month after month. With money, visitors, and information like that it’s no surprise Google wishes to jump in the ring.

It’s clear why Google would want to tap into the social media market but I’m just not sure if it will, ultimately, be ethical. We are getting to a point in technology where one company could conceivably hold a monopoly in almost every facet of information acquisition throughout the Internet.

I realize that taking one monopoly, Facebook, and creating a competitor is healthy but we have to look at a possible conclusion – Google wins. They then have the ability to not only define API target marketing, like Facebook does, but could possibly utilize search results to populate that marketing as well. Awkward and even more invasive than technology is already.

I know I sound like a Luddite and perhaps I’m being overtly paranoid; Google may once again offer a streamlined, cool, superior service. It is debatable to what extent one company should be allowed to hold such personal information from so many different facets. Additionally, for a company so invested in creating viable spam free content it’s surprising that they would work with a company accused of the very thing. Only time will tell as Google Games is slated to launch later this year.

As an educational resource…

Linked In has a very comprensive section called Answers. There are a few different ways you can use the section to both educate yourself and to gain respect as an expert in your field.

The Answers section allows everyone on Linked In to ask a question or answer questions other professionals have already asked. If you are looking for advice on a particular situation or topic, you can serach for answers referring to your topic of interest or you can ask a question of your own. You are allowed to ask up to 10 questions per month as a member.

You can deem someone as an expert and give the recognition if they answer your question the best. This also can work in your favor, if you are the one who is trying to gain recognition as an expert.

Example scenario:

Let’s say Dr. John is an established economist. His goal is to become better recognized online as an expert in economics because he relies on speaking engagements to support himself financially. He goes to the Answer section on Linked In and selects Answer Questions. He then searches for the keyword “Gross Domestic Product.” He also could have gone to the categories of questions, selected Finance and Accounting, then Economics for more general questions. Both methods bring up a list of questions that has been sorted by either date or distance from your recorded location.

After searching the list, he finds a good question that he feels he can answer accurately. The question being “What is the gross domestic product and how does it affect my business?” He creates the answer and posts it. Also, as an added bonus, he includes a link at the end of the post to his blog entry “GDP and What it Means to You” and a note letting the asker know he has been in the game a long time and speaks frequently about Economics at business events.

As a follow up tool…

You can create an extensive network using Linked In. However, a bigger network doesn’t necessarily mean a better quality network.

Linked In is a great tool to use in addition to in-person networking. After an evening of mingling, you may begin to forget the people you met but you have a pocket full of business cards.

You can begin by looking each one of these individuals up on Linked In and requesting them as a conection. Now, you can keep track of them professionally by being apart of their online network, following their feeds, and seeing what groups they are in. When the time comes to reach out to a specific contact, pulling up their contact info is at the click of a button.

As an ice breaker…

Once you begin to use Linked In and become familiar with it, you choose to upgrade your account to include InMails. This allows you to search for particular contacts that might be good leads, partners, job applicants, etc. You can search your contact’s networks, search by company, by position, or location, or group to find the people that will help you meet your business goals. The InMail feature allows you to “cold call” by way of a Linked In message to introduce yourself.

As a Marketing outlet…

There is a feature on Linked In called Groups. There are groups for many different topics and locations. For example, Pittsburgh groups include Network Pittsburgh, Into Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Business Times, and Pittsburgh Business Calendar.

As a business gains recognition it always needs new outlets to approach with PR plans. Using the groups available to you, you can post press releases, event details, promotions, special offers, etc. It gives direct access to highly target markets.

Many business owners seem to be intimidated by social media, however, using social media sites appropriately and creatively can help you expand and generate more business. NuRelm has closed tons of new business in recent months through the use of Linked In and Biznik.

When it comes down to the control of a Website’s success, leaving it to Website professionals is essential.  Here are some great steps to becoming a great client and getting the results you really want from your site.

• Be Educated: Education is essential to every Website project. As a business owner, you should really try to understand the Website process before embarking on a project. Learn the roles of each person to be involved, what your responsibilities are, the deliverables of each milestone throughout the project and what you want the end result to be. Like finger prints, no two design companies’ processes are the same, but the concepts are consistent throughout the industry.

• Be Prepared: Be prepared to produce logo files, domain name account information, FTP information, and direction on what the site you seek should offer to your target market. An outline of the navigation is a great way to tackle a Web site project.  A good navigational plan is like a great blueprint for a house.  If you have trouble, most firms will help you solidify your navigational plan. If you don’t have the rest of this information on file or do not know what it is, talk to your current IT company or hosting provider.

  Common Misconception: Web designers are not mind-readers.  Even though Web professionals may know the components of a good Web site, they don’t know your business or your tastes like you do.  Look at competitor sites, industry-specific Websites, and any site that you just plain like.  Starting with some design concepts is better than letting a designer waste time by pulling ideas out of thin air.  Know what you like and what works in your industry before you start.

• Be Vigilant: Make sure you understand the agreement before you sign. Parameters that should be covered include who will be responsible for updating site’s content ongoing, who is hosting the site, milestones of the project, payment terms, time constrictions, how much will additional design changes cost if needed, exactly what is included in the price, etc.  Asking questions beforehand is way easier than fighting something you’ve already agreed to.
• Be a Good Listener: Everyone knows that if you are a business owner you generally must know what you are doing.  However, when it comes to Websites,  business owners want to take control.  A good Web designer will tell you when you make a bad decision.  Most of the time, a Web designer will come up with concepts for a design that express more modern, proven strategies and features.
• Be Kind: There is nothing worse than dealing with a bad attitude.  Some people are impossible to please but we all still have to try.  Giving someone a hard time, treating them like they are below you or outright being mean is unacceptable, yet there are those who make a hobby out of it.  Alienating your design team will get you nowhere.  The nicer you are, the more you get in return.

For information on being a good client or your next Web project, please contact NuRelm at 1.877.2NuRelm Ext. 204 or email info@nurelm.com.