·         Verify people from robots

·         Avoid Twitter spam

·         Save time managing your followers

The service is completely free and simple to sign up and validate your profile by filling in a CAPTCHA box.  You can then choose to send a DM to every person who follows you automatically asking them to validate themselves with the service.   A simple idea, but a valuable service to help keep Twitter bots at bay and out of my Twitter updates page.  It also add credibility to your own account by being validated as human.   You can easily sign up now at http://truetwit.com/truetwit/signUp/index

If you found this information helpful please let me know.

Posted via web from media maniac

For many bloggers, driving traffic is one of their main goals of having a blog in the first place. Many of us measure success based on the number of views per day, or the number of comments, or retweets that happened because of something you posted.  Others ignore these measures and base their success on other factors such as an offer or something substantial from someone who visits their site..  An artist for example selling a large piece of art for thousands of dollars to a single person, is more valuable to that person than 50 visitors who buy nothing.  Now on to the fishing.

The reason that blogging is like fishing is because you have to continually be adapting your strategy to “catch the most fish”, or the “biggest fish”. Where the flyfisher picks his fly with care, depending on the conditions of the day, the stream or river he is fishing, and the type of fish he is trying to catch, the blogger must similarily choose his/her headlines and content with care as well.

The headlines, or subject of a blog post is your “bait”. You have to put it together properly to attract the most attention and get people to actually click into your site, which is essentially a “bite”.   You can fead your healines and links through many different social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, depending on the type of “fish” you are trying to catch. 

Now that you have them on the hook, you need to ensure the content at your blog is valuable and unique, so that the reader will spend some time looking around, subscribe to you, and become a loyal follower. If they end up just visiting and then leaving you have lost the catch for that opportunity. A “catch” to me would be a subscriber, comment, or article retweet, something that engages the visitor further. If you have accomplished that then you have just caught one fish.

Often times the number of fish caught is not as important as the size of the fish. In blogging, this equates to the quality of your followers. For example, 15 followers/subscribers who never interact may not be nearly as important as catching the 1 big fish, the person who has the connections, information, and williness to connect with you and make a difference.

If you are not getting the traffic and interactions that you want on your blog then adjust your bait. Continue to research and come up with different ideas, better headlines, different channels. Using analytics such as Google Analytics will help you determine where you are failing.

If you are simply not getting any traffic, then you need to improve your headlines, and get them out through channels like Twitter, Facebook, and many other social networks, but make sure you are using the right channel for your intended target audience.

If you are getting a lot of views, but only for a very short duration of time, and not many repeat visitors then you probably need to improve the quality, content, and uniqueness of your site, articles, and offerings.

The more you fish, and learn about fishing, the more likely you will catch more fish, and bigger fish, on any given day. If you are still reading this I ask that you please comment, retweet, or subscribe to know that I have set my lure properly with this article. Positive and negative feedback is welcome.

Posted via web from media maniac

The same day that Facebook released their URL shortener fb.me, Google also announced that they are launching Goo.gl, their version of a URL shortner which Google says is now the best due to its stability, security, and of course… speed.

Although there have been numberous different services for shortening urls such as bit.ly and others, we have not heard of such tech giants such as Google and Facebook entering the game until very recently. It should make for an interesting showdown to URL shortening supremecy which has yet to be established.

Posted via web from media maniac

Today Twitter announced that it has started beta testing a new feature called “Contributors” which is specifically designed for businesses, in an effort to help monetize the service. Get the full article at I

http://mashable.com/2009/12/14/contributors-twitter-business-features/

Here’s Twitter’s explanation of the new feature in testing:

“The feature we are beta testing is called ‘Contributors’ – it enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account. The feature appends the contributor’s username to the tweet byline, making the business to consumer communication more personal; e.g. if @Twitter invites @Biz to tweet on its behalf, then a tweet from @Twitter would include @Biz in the byline so that users know more about the real people behind organizations.”

The important thing here in my opinion is the move into the business model and Twitter looking to begin utilizing their users and services to start making money. It is just the start of what could be another potential goldmine for those who innovate on this new feature.

What other types of things could Twitter release for generating cash and making their service even more business friendly?

Posted via web from media maniac

I have found and read articles on topics that interest me, far more than ever before through simply searching in Yahoo or Google.  I have also learned more about Twitter simply by using it, seeing how it works, seeing how people interact, engage, and share, then you ever could through reading a million articles about it.  So if you have just been reading about it and never using it yet, get started.

Over and over I find people tweeting articles that discuss how important it is to “engage your followers”.  I could not agree more through my experience.  The best information is that which comes from a trusted source.  It is up to you to built that trust with others through personal connections and conversations, and “find the real people” on Twitter that can help you along the way.  I still have a lot of work to do in this area, but know it is the key to success.

I found, like everyone will, that there are bots on Twitter, there are ways to auto post tweets from an account, and there is a ton of useless information being passed around as well.  But if you are really reaching out to people and engaging them then you can see through the clutter and find real people looking to build relationships and help each other.  You will never find these people if you do not reach out on a personal level and interact with your following.  Getting people who will constantly retweet your ideas is the way to expand your influence and reach.

You can have 100,000 followers but if none of them deem you as a credible source then it will make no difference.  Get out there and “find the real people”, by engaging them to the fullest to build your position as a trusted source of information.  With a quality following of people who care about you, the opportunities will create themselves.

Posted via web from media maniac

I would recommend using a Facebook profile for only close friends so you dont have to worry about different sharing permissions for different people. If you are using Facebook for a business then you should be using a Facebook Fan Page instead of a profile. Then you can easily seperate personal “friends” from “fans”, who are really the equivalent of “followers”.

A “follower” is a person that is not emotional important to you, but a “friend” is. It all depends on the language used by the site which builds the culture around how the site builds its userbase.

If you are using a social network that specifically uses the term “friend”. Use with caution because emotions will be involved.

In the meantime since that offer, Friendster has mostly disappeared in the US but managed to get some 100 million users using their platform in Asia. It appears that Friendster unfortunately missed their window of opportunity in the US, something that everyone should keep as a good reminder when an offer is put on the table, it may be the best offer you will ever see.

Friendster certainly may have had reason to believe that they were going to grow much larger in the US, but they did not execute, and in the end, failed to maintain their leadership in the social networking arena.

Posted via email from media maniac

If you have not already, you will notice when you log into Facebook the next time that they have released their new Privacy Policy and therefore you need to update your settings.

Be very careful about how you set things and review them in your Profile after Facebook takes you through the transition guide. I found several things that were being shared with more people then I wanted.

It appears that Facebook is attempting to force people into making more of their content public, which many people may not want to do. Specifically be careful of anything you mark to share with ‘Everyone’.

Some experts are saying that they are concerned about how Facebook has pushed out this change, however I can’t see anything malicious about it as long as people choose their settings appropriately and Facebook adheres to those settings.

Posted via web from media maniac

If you have logged into your posterous account today you have noticed the is a new tab for your ‘Group Profile’. If you don’t have a posterous account, then sign up now for free and check it out.

The Group Profile addition opens up a whole new realm for Posterous and the depth of its blogging platform. You can now easily create a group blog for posting and autoposting to a single group blog profile.

This feature puts Posterous in a position to begin competing more seriously with many of the other larger blogging platforms which have been using group blogging for a while now. Now more teams, businesses, and professionals can start to consider Posterous as a viable option for their blogging.

The major advantage I see is that the email interface for blogging on Posterous is the best in the industry and that same functionality extends into all group blogging as well.

It will be interesting to see how this catches on, and what else Posterous has for our future, but for now this is a great addition which I think will highly increase the usage and exposure of this great blogging platform.

Posted via web from media maniac

One of the most difficult questions to answer for many business and entreprenuers who are engaging in social media is, “in what ways, and how much is this affecting my business”. You need to be able to measure ROI at the end of the day, and it is a more difficult challenge in the new world of social media than it has traditionally has been.

A key point is to have a focus on what you are trying to accomplish when you first engage in social media. Don’t just jump in without a plan. Come up with something specific and measurable as an end goal, and make every decision around what you do, what you share, where you share it, etc, based on that.

Once you have established your end goals, take a benchmark of where are currently on those same measurements so you will know where you started. One you have these two points of data, where you started, and where you want to get, then you can begin to measure progress.

ROI may not be in terms of dollars, it may be in terms of followers, reduced call volumes, increased customer satisfaction, or any number of other measures. Dell has used Twitter as a channel for offering “Twitter only promotions” so they can measure exactly how much business they are doing specifically through that channel. What other creative ways can you come up with for using social media for your business that will be highly measureable in terms of ROI?