Dive into the archives.
- The 562 Links I Tweeted This Week: 3/7 – 3/12
In case you missed one, or some, or just don’t even try to keep up with all the links I tweet throughout the day every day, here is this week’s list of links for your weekend reading and review. Listed purely in the order I tweeted them and no other type of organization, you will find topics such as technology, social media, web and graphic design, freelancing and more. Please leave a comment if you find this list useful so I will know that it’s helping someone out. Enjoy!
- All The Links I Tweeted This Week: 3/1 – 3/5
I have tried to share the links I tweet in several different formats on this blog, just in case someone would benefit from it. It got to be a bit much work, and then the automated searchable database of links that I had running started doing weird things, so I kind of stopped. But I thought I would try another route, and simply keep a copy of every link I tweet throughout the week, then simply make the list available here. It’s not sorted by category or anything like that. It is just plain and simply the links in the order I’ve tweeted them, from Monday through this morning. Social media, SEO, freelancing, web and graphic design – all here and probably a few other things as well. On the weekends there are significantly less articles published, so maybe if you are looking for something to read this will give you some options.
- Surprise!!! Social Media (and Life) Is NOT A Competition
Spend a few minutes browsing through recent headlines about social media and you will most likely be left with the impression that all of the networks are in a fierce competition with each other. Facebook is the king, with more paticipants than any other. Twitter recently boasted that its users are posting an average of 50 million updates a day. Google Buzz burst onto the scene and the pundits immediately pitted it against the others in comparisons and contrasts. The list goes on and on, with countless also-rans and quickly-developed newcomers waiting in the wings, all hoping to compete for your membership and usage.
Zoom in and take a closer look within the individual social networks and you will witness users clamoring for significant increases in followers and friends, regularly checking numbers and trying a myriad of techniques to grow their counts to what those who are paying attention might call ‘respectable’. Tools that rate, rank and grade feed the frenzy and give us all the ability to measure our success in order to insure that we are doing things ‘correctly’.
A few weeks back I got involved in a conversation on Twitter in which another user (identity to remain anonymous) was tweeting complaints to TwitterGrader (a tool that ranks users based on an algorithm that goes beyond simple numbers). This person was upset because they have almost twice as many followers and updates as I do, yet TwitterGrader listed me in the top 5 in my city while leaving him somewhere further down the list. I told him it really didn’t matter and that this whole thing is not a competition, to which he responded vehemently, “EVERYTHING is a competition! LIFE is a competition!”
Really? Is that the world we live in?
- Don’t Let Your Bad Attitude Or Ethics Ruin It For The Rest Of Us!
The other night my wife and I went to our eldest daughter’s high school basketball game to cheer her on. We took our regular spot up at the top of the bleachers so we could lean back against the wall rather than slouching on the hard wood for the entire game. As we settled in, we noticed a few parents from the other team had the same idea and were setting up camp about 15 feet away. We commenced with the standard smile and nod acknowledgements and then turned our attention to the beginning of the contest. What transpired over the next hour inspired a range of emotions, from anger to frustration to disappointment. And I’m not talking about what happened on the court.
- AT&T, Verizon, and the Major Fail of Mudslinging Marketing
If you have watched any live television in the past month with the unfortunate inability to fast forward through the commercials, you have most likely witnessed the back and forth advertising campaigns of AT&T and Verizon. It started with Verizon’s launching of the new Droid phone and an all-out bashing of the current king of all smartphones, the iPhone. Verizon decided to seize the opportunity to point out AT&T’s lacking 3G coverage along the way, playing on the iPhone’s catch phrase, “There’s an app for that”. Verizon cleverly changed it to “There’s a map for that”, showing US maps displaying the disparities between the two competitors’ 3G coverage.
Not to be outdone, AT&T has launched its retaliation campaign, bringing in celebrity Luke Wilson to point out that AT&T has coverage for 97% of the country (deceitfully refraining from stating the fact that this number is not reflective of their spotty 3G-specific coverage, which is what Verizon was attacking), and attempting to punch back at Verizon by stating that the only comparison chart column they excel in is the one for a company name that starts with the letter ‘V’.
It’s only been a few weeks since the feuding began, but I’m already disgusted and exhausted with it. From my perspective, this type of advertising would be enough to drive me to cancel my contract with either one of them and find another cell phone service provider.
- Are “Lists” The New Twitter Status Measurement?
Let me start this off by saying that I have not made use of Twitter’s new “List” feature because I don’t use the Twitter web interface nearly as much as I use Tweetdeck (here’s a great article explaining Lists). At first glance it seems that the new feature is very similar to Tweetdeck’s “Group” feature that enables me to create groupings of specific people who I wish to organize their tweets and perhaps watch them a little more closely than others or for particular reasons. After doing a little research there is one apparent difference: lists are public. My groups in Tweetdeck are not.
I believe this is not just a good expansion of the social networking capabilities of Twitter, but it is also very strategic. I would be willing to bet that the geniuses behind Twitter, while creating a very useful addition to their already powerful and revolutionary tool, have also taken into consideration one of the driving forces behind its popularity: the competitive human nature that pushes for social media status and measurable success.
- Social Media Strategy Minus Human Engagement = Business Fail
Last night I went to my daughter’s first Freshman Chorus concert. Of course, my little girl’s voice stood out among the pack, but the beautiful sound of angelic voices blending perfectly together was wonderfully soothing and enjoyable, even though the majority of the songs they were singing were remarkably antiquated and, in my opinion, emotionally sterile. As a musician myself, I am admittedly a bit of a snob, but this was more about a lack of connection with and passion for what the songs were about. Each selection, including the big finale splattered with corny unison hand claps in what I guess was an attempt to display enthusiasm, left me disappointed for my daughter’s personal musical progression. Afterward we discussed the differences between singing well and singing with a passionate desperation from the depth of your soul. This is a perpetual rant for me, and one my family is probably exhausted with. But every time we sit through an American Idol show, or hear another sticky sweet pop song on the radio, or encounter anything else that pits passion against perfection, I can see that they get it, and that’s important to me as their father. If there is one thing I most want my children to carry with them throughout their lives, it is an intrinsic understanding that the pursuit of their passion is primary and that without it they will not only never be completely content, but they will also fall short of giving the world their very best.
At this juncture you are probably wondering what any of this has to do with the title of this post. Don’t worry. I didn’t use the title to lure you here to listen to me rant about musical integrity and passion, or how proud I am of my children. The point is this: whether it’s your own personal endeavors, or your business pursuits, or your new social media strategy, I believe you can only get so far on just doing it well. Without real, personal, passionate human interaction, your end result will always be limited.
- 15 MORE Designers You’ve Never Seen On A List Before
There seems to be an endless supply of “undiscovered” and “undocumented” designers. You know the ones. All those talented people who are lesser known for whatever reason. Maybe networking is not their thing. Or they don’t do social media (yet). Or they’re just too busy working to try and promote themselves enough to be noticed by the design blog roundup writers. Whatever it is, it is most often not because of a lack of talent! Somehow most of the same designers end up on those lists, so being one of the “unknowns” myself, I am using my little corner of the internet to promote my fellow designers.
So here today I give you 15 more designers that, until now, you’ve never seen on a list before. Check out their websites. Follow them on Twitter. Connect with them on their other social networks. And let’s continue to encourage the growth of the design community.
- How to Best Promote Your Brand Using Social Media: 10 Top Tips and Ideas!
Whether we like it or not, people – customers- are and will always be the main focal point of any marketing, promotional and research and development efforts. They are, as the quote above clearly indicates, the real assets of any business with which it can’t operate or function without. Therefore, when considering the best practices for promoting any brand or product, through social media or offline, the first thing the company has to consider is its target audience, in terms of demographics, education, backgrounds, likes, dislikes and so on and so forth.
Yet, since the simple marketing mix theory consists of 4 main elements: product, place, promotion and price, the tricky part is figuring out the right mix that suits a liquid medium such as social media.
Therefore, this article will discuss, in details, the best 10 top tips and ideas that can help steer a brand towards success and away from mistakes that might lead to utter failure and losses!
- Monthly Mother Lode of MacDaddy Links: September 2009
This is it – you’ve struck the Mother Lode of MacDaddy links! All my Delicious bookmarks from September 2009 compiled and somewhat organized by subject matter. Not claiming to be the TOP links of the month (whatever that is) but these are links I have saved to my own personal bookmarks because I have found them valuable and useful.
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