What First in Social Media?

A question that I get all the time is “How do I get started in social media? There are a million blogs out there, which ones should I start with?” Since I frequently tell people basically the same answer, I figured I should probably blog about it (although, if they are a complete newbie, they probably aren’t reading my blog, so perhaps I’m launching this into the echo chamber, but nevertheless, here we go…)

One of my favorite first stops on the getting your feet wet highway is the Common Craft Show. This site has a myriad of intro/how to/in plain English videos. One of my favorites is Social Bookmarking in plain English. Last summer, my mom asked me what delicious is and why she would ever want to use it. After tripping and stumbling over my tongue for a few moments attempting to figure out how to explain it to her, I turned on my computer and showed her this:

After watching it she said, “ok, I get it” and then she actually started using it! My goal this summer: get her on Twitter.

Now onto blogs:

There are quite a few quality blogs out there. All of them require a newbie to comb a little, but there are definitely nuggets of gold to be found. A few good places to start are Chris Brogan’s blog, for microblogging (aka Twitter) Laura “Pistachio” Fittons’s blog, Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel is also great. I recently blogged about a list that Viralogy put together of the 10 best marketing blogs by Gen-Yers. If you are interested in affiliate marketing and how to make money from you blog, and about blogging in general definitely check out Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger. If video blogging (or vlogging) is your thing, then Steve Garfield is your man.

Now, before I hurt any one’s feelings for leaving them out… I want to state loud and clearly that there are a TON of amazing blogs out there on a TON of topics. Many of which I read almost daily (I definitely don’t have time for the newspaper anymore, but with all the great content out there, who needs a newspaper?!) The resources I listed above are simply what I view as a good starting places to begin the adventure that is social media.

With all that being said, what do you think? Is there a blog or a site that you advise people to read when they are dipping their toes in for the first time? I’m always looking to be a better advice giver, so please share :)

Photo Credit: Bartek Kuzia

Social Media Jungle Boston

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at Social Media Jungle hosted by Jeff Pulver here in Boston (well, Waltham actually, but close enough). It was a great day with a lot of amazing speakers. The format was casual, which I’ve come to expect at social media conferences and events. Each presenter had 20 minutes to present their thoughts/ideas with no PowerPoint slides. Jeff encouraged all the speakers (and the audience) to think of each session like a blog post–floating ideas out there for people to interact with and comment on. Some sessions were more interactive than others, Laura @Pistachio Fitton had us raising our hands for polling purposes, Steve Garfield had us uploading pictures to the web real-time and Christopher Penn has us shouting out what numbers matter to us like a game show. Lots of other amazing people presented that day and I highly suggest checking out the assembly of blog posts that came out of the day. And don’t forget to check out the Twitter stream from the day too.

A few of my take-aways from the day:

• Be human, be real, be vulnerable — we are people talking to people. Not brands talking to brands or companies talking to companies.
• One email can make all the difference (of course this is one of my take-aways, it was mine and Alexa’s session ;-)
• We need to stop talking about social media in social media. Time to spread the gospel. Or time to just use the tools without always talking about the tools.
• Be HELPful - Hustle, Engage, Listen, be Passionate
• Engage each generation, utilize each one of the generations’ specific talents. No one is irrelevant, no one is too inexperienced. Each generation brings a unique perspective to the table. Be cognizant of that and use it to your advantage.
• Numbers matter. But don’t let them matter too much. (CC Chapman first spoke about how the numbers don’t matter, then later in the day CS Penn rebutted with how certain numbers do matter, and matter a lot. The balance of the two points of view was perfection.)
• The influencer doesn’t matter. The message matters. If you say something good, and say it for long enough, people will hear. You don’t necessarily need a loud speaker. And having one doesn’t necessarily mean that people are going to pay attention.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to passion. BE PASSIONATE about what you do. Excitement can be found in the most mundane of details and tasks if you look hard enough. And in this crazy world we live in, with the economy spiraling out of control, my one little piece of advice–keep breathing.

Chris Brogan’s Rockstars

A few weeks ago, Chris Brogan asked me to categorize the Rockstars page on his site.

The list was long, and it was quite daunting to have to decide in which category to place these amazing blogs. Even more daunting was categorizing the blogs of people I know personally, what if I got it wrong? With a deep breath, I dove in. What I found was that there were some very user friendly blogs, and some that were not so much user friendly.

By “user friendly,” I mean that within a few moments of looking at the page, and without reading a single post, I knew what the blog was about. The ones that were had nice, succinct tag lines. Although, sometimes the tag lines were along the lines of “social media, technology, art and musings.” Those ones didn’t help me very much. Ranked after clear tag line came tag clouds–the kind where the more frequently a tag is used, the bigger the word is. Next comes categories, but only if they have a post count next to them. If all else failed, I looked at the about page. More times than not though, the about page was about the author, not the blog. Maybe, have two about sections?

Maybe you are thinking, “Why should I spell it out for people? Just read my posts!” Well, unless you don’t care if anyone reads your blog (and secretly, or not so secretly, we all care), why throw up road blocks. We all live hectic, jam-packed lives. Most of us don’t have time to slowly peruse a blog we’ve never read before. So, make it easy! Spell it out for you readers. Tell them exactly what they will find, why it matters, and perhaps even, why they should listen to you.

Once I got over my issues with categorization, I began to notice a trend. Almost all the blogs were people’s personal contributions to cyberspace. I was shocked at how few company associate blogs there were. If you aren’t familiar with Chris’ Rockstars page, maybe this doesn’t seem surprising. But the thing is, Chris doesn’t choose who is and isn’t on that page. If you send him the link to your blog and RSS feed (and now preferred category), he will post it on his page. Its a freebie!

Considering that his blog is ranked 899 in Technorati, he might be what you would call an opinion leader. So, why aren’t more companies taking advantage of this freebie? In my opinion, this is just indicative of the larger issue, companies aren’t getting involved enough in new media. A million blog post have been written about the subject so I won’t get into it, but it continues to amaze me.

So, here’s my advice: if you have a blog, make it user friendly. If you work for a company that isn’t fully taking advantage of all new media has to offer, kick it in gear! There is no time like now. One of my favorite quotes (but can’t remember who said it): “Today is the tomorrow you were dreaming about yesterday.”

ps. I realize that my blog doesn’t adhere to any of the user friendly suggestions. I realize this, so I’m not being hypocritical. My blog is a baby. I’m working on it. Lots of user friendliness to come!!