Twitter, Blogging, Podcasting and More

Social Networking in 2010

This is a guest post by Erica Mueller from Ericasays.com. She describes herself as a self-taught graphic designer for both web and print, a Wordpress lover and manipulator, freelance writer, blogger, and a social media enthusiast.

Social Networking in 2010

If you’ve signed up for and use Twitter you’ve probably noticed there’s not a lot of conversation happening in this space. The same goes for Facebook, LinkedIn, and other networks. These places have turned into free billboards full of spam, marketing, and very few gold nuggets.

No, these great tools haven’t always been this way. When I first joined Twitter I enjoyed many a conversation; I learned and I taught. And, I connected. Facebook is a little different… We tend to connect with our personal friends via our own accounts, but when we add on a fan page for our website, we’re normally the only one posting anything to the stream.

The 80-20 rule is great, but I think maybe it should be more like:

40% Conversation
40% Promoting Others
20% Self Promotion

If we want to stand out from the crowd, we’re going to have to connect and we’re going to have to do less linking. Not every micro-post needs to contain a link, or self-promoting content. Post things that make people think. Post a question via your Facebook Fan Page. When people reply, follow up. Sometimes people just want to talk. Some may not have time to go read a blog post, but they’ll take five seconds to read the 140 characters you’ve used to answer their question. And, maybe the next time you post a link to an informational post, they’ll remember you as the one who helped them out.

It ain’t called Social Networking for nothin’!

What are your ideas for turning your online space into a social gathering?

Some Serious Blog Engagement

Ok, the pressure is really on now. I entered Jordan’s NotAProBlog Contest to win a one hour private session of Comedy Coaching for Bloggers, but I didn’t win. So I need to find a way to amuse you with no help from Jordan at all.

I’m here to spread the word about social networking, blogging, branding, podcasting you name it, and now I have to live up to my true calling. I need to earn my keep.

One thing I learned about having high standards, once you set them – it’s tough to live up to them. I mean think about it in the last 2 weeks, I’ve had other bloggers like Suresh, Allan, DiTesco, Will, Jimi and Payson cheering me on, thanking me on their blogs, and featuring my videos in their posts. I just can’t let them down now, they’re counting on me for goodness sake. (Hope I didn’t forgot to mention anyone (fingers crossed))

I joked with Brandon Cox the other day about not being on his blogroll and he ended up subscribing to The Podcast Blog – now that’s “mad” pressure right there.

TheBondGurl

To top all of this off, I introduced my daughter TheBondGurl to the Blog Engage community by submitting one of her posts. What a crazy move that was. Her post ended up getting tons more votes than my own post submission that day. Duh!

With all of that being said, here’s my strategy to jump-off with some serious blog engagement here at Engaging With Ms. Ileane Speaks. This should end up taking my blog(s) to the next level of social networking and making them your favorite “go to” source for what’s hip, what’s cool, and what’s really going down in the blogosphere.

Take a look at what I have my blogging fingers on the pulse of now (ok, I’m being serious from this point on):

I am now officially Worthy of Attention
I did my first guest post at Blazing Minds
Looking for guest bloggers at MyBlogGuest (right after I publish this post)
Joined FAQPAL (fantastic collection of tutorial posts and how-to videos on the web)
Came in second place for commenting in the Blog Engage contest which means my ad and logo for The Podcast Blog appear on Blog Godown for the next month.
By the way, I won another contest over at Ericasays and which is how I got the shiny new logo in the first place. You know what they say – you gotta play to win!
Contributed on the Blog Collaboration Paragraph Challenge at Robert Bravery’s Integral Web Solutions along with 4 other bloggers. We covered the topic of Why Do We Comment On Other Blogs. (btw, I think I just entered another contest)
Wrote a post for the Blog Engage Word Challenge
Installed Google Analytics on my 2 blogs here at the Blogging Wire to track how the implementation of SEO tactics are going (why are you laughing now? that wasn’t supposed to be funny).
I started a Twitter list called B-list bloggers. You see A-list blogger are ok to follow but I wanted a list of cool bloggers that actually know who I am!!! (Don’t worry if you’re not on the list, I’m sure you are on one of my other lists. No amount of begging, pleaded or flattery can get you on this list either. Well…not so far anyway.)

By the way if you aren’t amused in the least by this post, you can take a look at this. I know we’ve all heard how dangerous it is to drive while texting, but this is a video of Harrison Tonne and he’s blogging while driving. I bet there’s no law against that yet!

Now that’s some serious blog engagement right there, I won’t go that far. How about you?

Image credit DH Photographix

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Install Google Analytics!

Now that Brian from Blog Enage introduced the BloggingWire I have the opportunity to expand the scope of my blogging experience. One of the most exciting changes is that I can now use Google Analytics to track the traffic coming into Engaging with Ms. Ileane Speaks and The Podcast Blog.

You might be wondering, What is Google Analytics? Google provides free tracking statistics for your website or blog to help you gain insights and make changes when necessary. I learned a great deal about the value of the intelligence you can gain from Google Analytics by following Avinash Kaushik. I talked about Avinash in this post about Gurus and Evangelists – 6 Creative People to Watch in 2010. He’s a web analytics evangelist and if I could tell you the most important thing I learned from him it would be, not just to collect stats but to take action on what you learn from them.

Watch this Google Analytical tutorial video I created to give you a sample of the reports available to you.

http://www.vimeo.com/8793752

About 3 years ago I installed the Google Analytics code on several pages of the website at work and you can see more about it in Finding Answers on Twitter in More Than 140 Characters. Now, I’m pretty familiar with installing Google Analytics html code. The installation is different for each theme. If you are on the BloggingWire, let me know if you need help installing it on your theme and I’ll give you a hand.

If you’re already using Google Analytics, let’s start a discussion in the comments below and see how it’s helped you.

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Technorati Attempts A Comeback

For quite some time the news surrounding Technorati was all bad. In Top 5 Blog Topics I discussed how Technorati USED to be important and their ranking system had crumbled.

But now it seems that Technorati has made some improvements to their site and is begging to rebound. Here are a few posts about the revival.

Shirley’s Zone – Technorati Blog Claiming Fixed and Technorati Launches New Self-Serve Advertising Portal for Bloggers and Publishers

Louis Gray – Technorati, Once Near Death Focuses on Quality

Louis Gray’s Interview with Technorati SEO Richard Jalichandra Talking with @jalichandra of @technorati on site’s focus, future and expectations.

TechCrunch – The New Technorati

Technorati Blog – Technorati Blog Claiming is Fixed

I’m not certain that Technorati can rebuild their brand to it’s former state, but I don’t blame them for trying. Let me know if you have any Technorati buzz to share and what you think about their chances for survival.

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Finding Answers on Twitter in more than 140 characters

This post was written for Ryan. Hi Ryan Hanley aka @AlbanyInsurance.

Thanks for following along with me on Twitter the other day. I was really going on and on with some of my questions and surprisingly I was able to get some answers.

In reference to the questions I had about Google Analytics and bounce rate, I actually figured out the answer myself based on the conversation I had with Chuck aka @MrCyberSmartSEO.

I’ve been using Google Analytics for over 3 years at my day job. I am a promotions manager for membership and each year the members must pay their annual fee. When the fees are due I send out an email blast to all 20,000 of them and track various metrics like how quickly they respond, do they renew on the web, do they mail in the renewal, etc.

I set up Google Analytics on the renewal page, it’s important to note that members cannot renew on the web unless they go to this page first. Now take a look at the bounce rate for the renewal page here, you can see a bounce rate of 89.14%!

I guess you are wondering how I can still have a job with a bounce rate that high! We all know that bounce rate is the count for visitors that leave your site right?

Well as it turns out in this case the bounce rate indicates the members that are actually leaving one part of our website and going into another part which is our online store. These are the members that have renewed their membership. Whew! I thought I was going to need to dust off my resume. LOL

So, the point here is that because of the structure of our website this bounce rate is really a good thing. Now I could have given you a short 140 character answer, but this one is much more “Engaging” don’t you think?

See you in Twitterville!

Engaging With Ms. Ileane Speaks

Engaging Sites

Engaging Comments

Technorati Attempts A Comeback

Finding Answers on Twitter in more than 140 characters

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