I keep hearing people say that tweeting is not letting them blog or that tweeting is going to kill blogging eventually .This is somewhat a trend now and more and more people are saying this and trying to be fashionable . Let us take that question up and try to deliberate on this in this post . After all it is the New Year and reflection is in order .So I will take this as my debating point for 2010 . Let us go in detail
LinkedIn is a professional social network that can help leverage your career for business contacts, marketing your profile and capturing references. Also, companies where many people would want to work have profiles and key individuals on the site. You can learn a lot about who you would work with and who you should contact to get an inside edge on a job. So what we do with our LinkedIn profile makes a huge difference to whether or not we can drive value through our network .
In the good times of the economy we find the recruiters annoying and irritating and yet , today is an age when each one of us is yearning for one to find us . The recruiters use LinkedIn as a solid support resource to find profiles and to run reliable reference checks on prospects and candidates . As a candidate you can also use LinkedIn to research about the company that is recruiting you and who are the top guys in that company . In short you can get a preview of what your new workplace will look like .
The key to success on LinkedIn is a 100% complete profile with references from your superiors , peers and direct reports . The size of your network is also a good factor . If your network is well spread and has good numbers then you will get good responses for queries and endorsement requests . In the event of you looking for a change , the larger and widespread network will help immensely .If you are a service provider then LinkedIn is a great professional platform to pitch yourself in and get a few leads .
Overall it is a powerful professional connection medium that if used the right way can
So what are you waiting for ? Get cracking on your LinkedIn profile !!
Facebook has come up with a ‘fanbox” that is an easy way to widgetize a facebook page and garner fans for it . Here is the Mashable Post on the topic . So now a facebook page can have a fanbox sitting anywhere on the web and has the incredible power to convert visitors to fans . Great news ! This signals that facebook is ready to move a bit more closer to twitter . How ?
Simple , define a twitter follower : someone who wants your updates but does not mandate that you get their’s . Sound familiar ? Yep ! The facebook fan and the twitter follower are one and the same . Quote Mashable “Page admins will now see an “Add Fan Box to your site” link under the logo of their page. From there, they can cut and paste the code into their website, which will then display a widget containing that page’s latest updates, and optionally, pictures of fans. Additionally, Facebook users can become a fan of a Page right from the website the Box is embedded on.” Unquote That sounds like a follow-me on twitter widget to me !
This is nice ,considering that facebook has so far been shy and reticent about the outer limits of networking that they stand for and this really is the first time that they are coming out and signaling an intent to extend boundaries . I see a war starting here between Twitter and Facebook . But the sad part is that it is not an apple to apple comparison between Twitter and Facebook . That being said , let us see where this one goes !
The huge success of Twitter and the major scale in which people are taking to it is being hailed as the next best thing in the Internet boom . In fact this very thing has now made searches go real time and news to get completely real time from the source . People are networking like never before , the young and the old alike are embracing twitter like it is bunch of hot cakes . All this is good and heartening .But like all the good things in the world , twitter also has a bunch of bad apples that are budding right under this and flourishing now . These are the so-called incredible twitter apps that claim to do a lot of nifty little things for you on twitter , from getting you followers to automatically looking up interesting news and tweeting it to your followers . But beware , all that glitters is not really gold ! You might actually be letting the proverbial cat out of the bag , quite literally there !
My intention is not meant to alarm the reader into unnecessary panic , but do be aware that when you use twitter to authorize any app for to do something for you , you may actually be inadvertently also allowing a marketer sitting somewhere to tweet for you . Don’t believe it ? Look at the response from one of my friends on twitter
I was amazed when I saw that in my @replies , I had no idea what tweet He was talking about ! I did not post anything about 300 followers a day at all ! And I am sure that it is one of the apps that I had authorized which was doing work on my behalf . I immediately went to my settings and unauthorized all the apps and authorized only the ones that I trusted . I then went and deleted the tweet from my timeline , I did not want any more of my followers/friends to think that I posted it .I also changed my twitter password for good measure . After all this I started writing this post .
So here are a few things to remember :
What is SEO ?
SEO is the key to unlocking your website’s full potential. Google handles over 200 million internet search requests each day, and people who search for information clearly express what they want. Imagine capturing a relevant stream of such web traffic.That would mean that you are able to drive hordes of interested and potentially loyal folks to you website . That is the purpose of the existence of any website , to get traffic . So , it pays to get various search engines to sit up and notice your website and consequently , you ! SEO is the fine process of Search Engine Optimization of a web site . It is a combination or Art , intuition , science and intellect . It is also one of the tingling buzzwords on the net now
So How do I do SEO ?
Depends on whether you are rich or like me , economically challenged !! If you are rich , then you could hire a SEO specialist and pay him through your nose and watch him work his magic and leave you Search Engine Optimized ! BTW , at the end of all this , don’t expect him to tell you what he did , he won’t , it is his bread and butter you know . He does not want one more competitor ! Or you could take my approach , do it yourself and learn on the way , that way your optimization is optimal and useful . It not such a big deal if you want to do it for your own website . There a few clear and simple things that you need do , it is all just logic and common sense based . Relatively uncomplicated .Without much ado , below are things that I did for SEO for both my websites .
Do it yourself SEO
There my dear friends is all that I know about SEO , hope it is useful !
See you in the next !
Facebook will begin encouraging users to make more of their personal information public to everyone on the web, a shift that moves the company into more direct competition with micro-messaging service Twitter. On Wednesday, the company held a conference call to discuss new changes to privacy controls on the site, and said that in the coming weeks Facebook would ask each of its 225m members to reset their privacy settings. As part of the change, Facebook will trial different transitions tools. Some of these will offer a recommended batch of settings, which will make much more information viewable to anyone on the web than what is currently made public by default.The recommended setting will make public a user’s profile picture album, hometown and current city, bio, work and education information, and all the content a user publishes in their “stream”.This last point is key, as recent changes to Facebook’s design have encouraged users to publish more status updates. Making these updates public will in effect mimic much of Twitter’s functionality.Users will also be given granular privacy settings on each piece of information and content. But for users who choose the recommended setting, they will have to explicitly choose to make each piece of content private. This was reported by the Financial Times today .
Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer who is also running for California attorney general in next year’s election, said the changes were designed to make privacy controls simpler for users. “We believe that when tools are simple, people are more likely to use them and understand them,” said Mr Kelly.
This signals a direct positioning in competition to Twitter and solidifies statements going around that facebook suffers from severe Twitter envy . At the same time , the privacy chief of the company assured public that their fears for privacy getting compromised are unfounded and that the company was doing everything to ensure that the privacy fears are alleviated . It is worth noting at this time that the company has been subject to increasing flak for the way it offers data to application writers where the user has no control over what information is exposed . There is a Federal Complaint that the users have lodged against the Paolo Alto based Social Media giant .
What is more interesting is their plans to implement “followers” , people who follow your updates but are not necessarily known to you or part of your network on Facebook . That would be a verbatim copy of what Twitter is now doing . Personally one would want to see a facebook that is more user friendly . The limits that they have on the number of friends you can have have to go . Also perplexing is the fact that if you have a high frequency of updates , Facebook calls it a “virus like” activity and immediately your password is reset , I have first hand experience of this as I am one of the users who updates both twitter and facebook at the same time . I have gone through this eight times already . I can understand if it is a limit for the system’s performance , but not as a matter of policy .
Good that facebook wants to help me get more public , I just wish that they were more friendly with me too !
The web is abuzz with the news that facebook is up to a new change . This is on the heels of an announcement that sometime tomorrow , the social media giant is all set to announce major changes in it’s user privacy policies and that it is going to unveil an all new Facebook search that will be live and on par with the Twitter search that is currently ruling the roost there .This was clearly demonstrated by the netizens when there was a huge set of people looking for information on the Iranian Elections or MJ’s death , they found twitter search very useful and facebook , well , ‘very private’ . So what is behind this hugely hyped change and what can we expect from the press briefing tomorrow ?
First up , let us try and understand that ever since Twitter came on to the scene , the going has been tough for all the other social media players and with very valid reasons .The very fact that everyone’s updates was available on the public timeline unless the user locks his/her updates makes twitter eons ahead of everybody else . That in itself has limitless possibilities for getting information , getting credible sources of information and connecting with them very easy and available at the beck and call of a user . Then the mining ability of the twitter search engine is simply incredible and the precision and volume of data returned is simply mind blowing to say the least ! This was demonstrated and widely acknowledged when the Iran Elections and MJ’s demise were being searched for on the net . Twitter clearly came up trumps over even Google . There are also things like there are no restrictions on how many people can follow you and how many you can follow . That and the really simple sign on process with the sea of clients available make Twitter the killer that it is .
So here is what I think Facebook is gonna do tomm .First up , Like Mashable says ; they will rush in an option to make updates public . Next they will unveil the “new” facebook search .This I think is in line with their continuing efforts to mimic twitter .But there are questions like , most of us have a twitter app or a tweetdeck type app updating both twitter and facebook statuses , wont that make the search totally time consuming with duplicates to wade through ? Next is , what is facebook gonna do about friend limits and update frequency limits which are currently at very low levels ? What is the point of power , when no one can use it ? Let us wait , tomorrow as they say , is another day !!
Will Twitter kill the newspaper ? Will the new phenom spell the demise of my old friend of many mornings ? I think not ! Why ? Well that is the way Twitter works and even blogging for that matter . There will never be a day when blogging will replace the press media . These new phenoms compliment the old ones and will NOT replace them . Read on to see m view on this …
Twitter is a wonderful thing to drive traffic and also to promote products/services . Off late it is also THE place for catching breaking news . Many Social Media experts are predicting doomsday for the traditional news media as this grows in popularity . But here is the catch . The Tweeple get news from a source and then it gets tweeted and re-tweeted and trended and so on and so forth . But there has to be one place to get the news from to start this cycle . That source now is invariably the traditional news media . We are still very far away from word of mouth to tweet direct conversion . Then there is also another fact , the fact is in the numbers that are on Twitter , the overall numbers are staggering , but the developing world is still catching up . My call is that full mainstream adoption of twitter in India / China is gonna take a while .
The underlying problem in the developing world is the internet penetration , and that is still dismally low as a percentage !! Till the day there is a remarkable climb in that , the mainstream media is here to stay . I mean , we are still talking of villages that do not have water and electricity , forget internet !! That is a hard fact that we have to face !
Now the developed world , I know this sounds stupid , but the twitter craze in the west is working against twitter now . There are many people who are lost in the twitter-verse and have nothing but the same tweet to say about themselves every minute ! Then there are a few who keep slamming twitter in their tweets . I must say that the corporates also haven’t yet realized how use twitter the right way . All that just mean that it is not yet time .
Recently I have also seen that the trending topics on twitter can be easily manipulated to misguide people . So , the validity of the importance that twitter gives an issue is really questionable . But Yes , where it stands now , twitter is a great way to build and establish an on-line presence . But it is a long way from becoming the mainstay of news and info . Not Yet .
See you in the next !
I am not a power tweeter . I am just an average twitter user who has just started out and my twitter homepage at http://twitter.com/sakthidharan is testimony to that . But in the last few months that I have been tweeting , I have learnt a few things on Twitter and a few basic rules , I want to share that through my blog today . Let us talk about this …
Without much Ado , here are the rules that I follow :
Think your Bio and Design your page : When you register , think what you are writing in the one line bio and write it correctly . Remember , you are a brand and you are selling that brand . Change the boring default look of your page and most importantly use your own pic in the twitter icon . All these add credibility to you as a tweeter , also put a genuine website in your profile .Make the layout and text colors gentle on the eye . First impression is the best !
Follow your Followers : This to me is the holy grail of twitter existence , it is rude and unparliamentary when you want to be heard but will not hear others . Always follow your followers back . Having said that , it takes time , I have a backlog of about 500 pple to follow and am hoping to clear this weekend 
.But generally do it immediately when Twitter mails you and you won’t have a problem .
Think before you tweet : The art of writing your mind or sharing what you think or even just cracking a joke in 140 characters is extremely complicated . It takes time to master that , but that is time well spent . Here is an example , ” I fell down today ” versus ” My vertical axis met the horizontal ground today ” . Both mean the same thing but nobody will like reading the latter although it is scientifically written and perfectly precise. Also worth remembering is that your tweets define interest and disinterest from your followers . Bad or boring ones will bring the follower count down immediately and you can see that in real time . So Tweet after thought !!
Re-tweets are Good : Re-tweeting someone else’s tweets is not bad at all , as long as you leave his id intact in the re-tweet , otherwise , it is just like copying a text by just removing it’s cover . Both the original and the copies get less interesting if it looks like two pple said the exact same thing .
Promote yourself in the right spirit : Agreed that twitter is the IT thing in promos and sales now and now-a-days everyone has something to sell or promote . But blatant self plugging and repeated ones at that do not get any merit or attention . Tweet your blog post or your website or your service but do not overdo it . All your followers will catch that trend in your tweets and ultimately stop following you .
Celebrities on Twitter : Is it fun to know that Ashton Kutcher is looking at Demi Moore’s behind as she is ironing his coat ? Ugh ! But one million followers liked it and it came with a pic ! Following celebrities is ok , but ensure that the profiles are not fake and that these guys are actually tweeting sense . Otherwise , how does it help if you know exactly when Britney bought a new wig ? Most of these guys have a hidden agenda or a product to promote via their twitter presence , ensure that you are ok with this before getting into the follow mode .
You Don’t OWN Twitter : Twitter is also a company founded on the basic logic of making profits and is at the tipping point now . Remember that and expect a lot of changes that you really don’t like but they do .
Do Not be Rude : Even if you are pissed with anything anyone said , please be diplomatic and objective and send properly worded DMs and not @replies . That is a no-no and will screw up your tweetworthiness score .
That is all I learnt thus far in the twitterverse , More I learn , I will share it right here !!
See you in the next !
