Twitter Wish List

Dear @santaclaus, all I want for Christmas is…

1. Search Feature Within Followers and Following. I am often working and going about my day, and I have a brilliant thought. I know what you’re thinking, “how many brilliant thoughts can Sarah Schager really have everyday?”. The answer is undoubtedly a lot. These brilliant thoughts often need to be directed at or mention a particular follower or someone I am following. Even though I have the memory comparable to the largest computer in the world, I sometimes am distracted by my extraordinary talents and cannot remember every Twitter handle on my list. If Twitter had a search box at the top of my follower and following list, I could search for my Twitter buddy by name, location, or keyword. This would also help with a long unorganized “following” that you would like to categorize, but have no idea know where to start.
   
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Management Issue: Social Marketers and Personal Updates at Work

For most social media marketers, maintaining a personal presence online is important. It is often a requirement for getting a job in social media marketing in the first place. I have personally been in job interviews where I have been asked how many Twitter followers I have and whether I blog. It makes sense. In order to be a social media marketer you have to know the tools that are used in the industry – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc and how to leverage those tools on behalf of the client.

Having a social media staff with their own active social media accounts makes it difficult to establish rules that prohibit them from posting to their own accounts while working on their client accounts. It’s only natural in my opinion. Often during the day I’ll be researching the internet for a really good story to share with my target audience on the behalf of a client and come across an interesting social media statistic or post that I want to share on one of my networks. I have also been in the middle of work and a fantastic blog post idea pops into my head. If you are like me, you have to write at least a rough draft then and there or else you’ll lose the idea.

Links are like beers. It’s all about quality.

I love this infographic from team at Vertical Measures. It demonstrates how links are like beers. Some links are easy to get but won’t do much for your site while other links may take some work but are totally worth it.

For example, consider a link from a directory. This type of link is surely one of the easiest to obtain. A directory link would be equal to a… Pabst Blue Ribbon. Cheap, decent, and really an acquired taste.

On the other hand, a link obtained by first identifying a quality, high PR website and then drafting a customized message to persuade the webmaster to exchange links with you would be equal to sipping a Trappist Westvleterenmade made by the monks of Saint Sixtus. Hard to get but oh boy when you do, you want to make sure to sit back an enjoy!

Did You Spend 6 Hours on Facebook In May? U.S. Web Stats for May 2010

According to the latest Nielsen statistics on usage of the Internet in the U.S. during May 2010, users are still spending a good chunk of their online time checking out their Facebook profiles. This is interesting in light of the recent campaign to quit Facebook and the calls for the network to improve its privacy controls.

The social network leads all others with users spending about 6 hours visiting Facebook during the month. Google and Yahoo still dominate as the top web brands in the US, in positions one and two respectively.

Web surfers did spend a little less time online in May. Usage numbers are down 4.6% from April. Users spent about 55 hours on internet in combined usage at work and at home.

Source: Top U.S. Web Sites and Brands for May 2010, NielsenWire

Imagine A Social Media World Without Your Business In It

Dear Small Business Owner,

You read my blog post Small Business Owners: 6 Reasons to Get Off Your Duff and Start Blogging! but you remain skeptical about starting a blog. Yes, you have many good excuses. The common ones are that you don’t have time, you don’t know how to write, and you don’t see the point.

Hey, no worries. I get that you’re busy. You are running a business after all.

Let me humor you for a moment and take you on an imaginary journey. Here’s the set up:

You decide that you don’t need to blog. Plus your website looks spectacular – why do you need to add blogging? In the meantime, your competitor down the street, let’s call him Bob, installs Wordpress, overcomes all of his excuses, and begins to blog about your industry.

So What happens?

1) Bob continues to blog on a regular basis. He also signs up for Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and a Ping.fm account and begins to share his blog posts across the internet. Soon he begins to attract comments from other leaders in your industry and from customers and potential clients seeking help or advice. The next thing you know, you see Bob at the monthly Chamber of Commerce meeting and he tells you he’s busier than ever since he started blogging and needs to hire two additional staff members to help him handle the demand.

2) Your encounter with Bob at the Chamber of Commerce piques your interest and you wonder how your website is doing in the Google search index. A quick search shows that your site is there on the front page, but Bob’s site is there too– ABOVE yours. Plus there’s another result for Bob’s last blog post– also ABOVE yours. Why is that? Well, because of the fresh content published on Bob’s blog on a bi-weekly basis combined with the commenting activity, Google views his website as a reliable online resource in your industry and loves it.