2 The Next Level

Archive for the ‘Social Networking’ Category

Ok so the tech world is a Buzz.. no pun intended about this new communication service by Google. Google Buzz was release with very little fan fair and a lot of quirky bugs. No one really new what to expect from the announcement and many were puzzled at first with what they saw. Was this new service going to replace Google Wave? Or was it something that was going to challenge the social media behemoths of the world like Twitter and Facebook. Answer.. A little of both.

Google Buzz has made most of us wonder why it was not released instead of Google Wave oh so many months ago. By the way have any of you actually used your Google Wave accounts since being able to use the service? I used my account all of 3 times. It was way to advanced and complicated for me. I especially didn’t like the feature of having people see exactly what I was typing in real time.

Buzz is inside gmail which is a good and not so good thing.  Unlike Twitter, Facebook and even linkedIn you don’t have a Google buzz web address. You can get to someones buzz account through your Google profile address. Mine is http://www.google.com/profiles/jbrath

At first getting someones Buzz stream was a complete chore because of all the threaded replies and comments. They have since fixed that and most of the other privacy issue problems.

I for one am almost Buzzed out. The thrill is gone and I really don’t care to buzz anymore.  I currently have just over 56 followers who are really not that buzzed as well. I click on the buzz link in my gmail every once in a while but I am not really getting anything more than I am getting from the other social networking services.

So what’s your take on Buzz?

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I have been a Facebook enthusiast for about 2 years now and was really happy with my growing legion of friends. I was well on my way to having over 4000 friends until a huge revelation came over me. I did not know who 90 percent of my Facebook friends were!

I like most of you, bought into the program that the more friends you have the better. I believed this whole heartedly up until this past Christmas. What happened to me this past Christmas you may ask? Well I got a new smart phone that had a special software included to keep me up to date with most of my Social Networking services like Facebook and Twitter.

MOTOBLUR is the name of the service created by Motorola.  MOTOBLUR will push Facebook and Twitter updates to my phone without having to download an application or go to their websites. It is a great feature to have when you want to keep up to date with all the people you follow on Twitter or have as friends on Facebook. This was a feature I thought would be a great asset to having this new smart phone. Boy was I right and wrong.

Too Much of a Good Thing.
Some times too much of a good thing is just that, TOO MUCH.  After setting up MOTOBLUR to grab both my Facebook and Twitter something strange happened. My cell phone got really slow and sluggish in responding. At first I thought it was just a defect of the phone but I then realized that it was the thousands of updates downloading to my MOTOBLUR service. It got so bad I almost thought I made the wrong choice in cell phones.

Mass Exodus Deletus
After getting all these status updates from people I didn’t even know or care about I finally made the decision that this was ridiculous and trying to keep up with all these people on my phone made no sense at all. It was bad enough trying to keep up with all of them online with my computer. So I decided to delete all unknown friends. This took me a few days because Facebook does not have any kind of mass delete button. You have to delete each person one at a time.

Quality Not Quantity
I am currently down to about 650+ friends and I am still finding some that I don’t know. I will continue to delete these friends that I don’t know or that don’t directly know someone I know. Some of you may have already figured this out and will keep your friends to a minimum. Those of you who are currently stockpiling friends as though they were a heard of cattle should think twice on what you are doing.  Facebook should be used to build and maintain quality relationships between family and true friends not be a free for all numbers game.

Facebook Fans vs Friends
Now that I have my Facebook Friends under control I am now looking to build up my Facebook Fan pages. If you would like to know more on why you should create a Facebook Fan page over another Facebook profile please see my blog post “The Facebook Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing is a Solopreneurs Dream Come True“. In the mean time please join one of my two fan pages. One is geared toward using Web 2.0 technology optimization to better your business. The other “JB Speaks” is centered around my love of speaking and training.

How many Facebook friends do you have?

Are you Facebook friends just numbers, or are they true friends?

Do you have a Facebook Fan page? If so, please list the url in our comments below.

If you don’t have a Facebook Fan page and would like one for your business, please email or call us to assist you in setting one up.

All the best

JB

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John Lawson from ColderICE.com has been recognized by StartupNation (http://www.startupnation.com) as one of the top businesses in its 2009 Home Based 100 competition under the category of Savviest in Social Media.

Many of the StartupNation Home-Based 100 submissions revealed that business owners are bucking the current economic downturn and finding business success in these tight times. Historically some of today’s most well known businesses started in a downturn, including Microsoft and General Electric.

“The 2009 ranking shows that the home-based business is more relevant than ever. The current recession has spurred a new wave of home based businesses as a response to loss of jobs, the need for supplemental income and the sheer passion for blazing your own trail and running your own show,” said Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation.com, one of the leading small business networking and advice websites. “Home based businesses are the biggest block of all businesses in existence and we expect numbers to grow ever greater as extra bedrooms, kitchen tables, basements and garages become host to the innovative thinking and pursuit of success by millions of Americans.”

“This is by far one of the coolest recognitions ever for me” said John Lawson, editor of ColderICE.com, a education portal for internet business owners. “This is the first year that this category has been acknowledged and to be the first winner is truly trail blazing. Social media is officially on the map and now I get to be the first pin.”

The StartupNation Home-Based 100 highlights 10 top-ten lists making it not just your ordinary business ranking. From the wackiest, to the most innovative, to the savviest in social media – this unique and diverse list highlights the home-based businesses that usually go unrecognized, but still play a vital role in the economy today. MSN publishes the ranking as well in an editorial collaboration with StartupNation. The ten categories for 2009 include:

· Recession Busters

· Savviest in Social Media

· Most Innovative

· Boomers Back in Business

· Greenest

· Yummiest

· Wackiest

· Highest Vote-Getters

· Most Slacker-Friendly

· Most Glamorous

John Lawson was selected from among thousands of contestants by a StartupNation judging panel, which issues the ranking results annually in the November.

The full results of the Home-Based 100 ranking are available on StartupNation’s website at http://www.startupnation.com/homebased100/. The 2009 ranking was sponsored by Microsoft Office Live, Infusionsoft and FedEx Office.

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Do you have a touch screen phone yet? I don’t. I have been debating whether or not I actually need one at this time.  Even with all of the iPhone craze, I still have not been tempted to have a touch screen phone. Well I have finally found a touch phone that I have literally fallen in LOVE with. What makes this lovefest so amazing is this new touch phone is not even on the market here in the USA yet.

The new Motorola CLIQ with MOTOBLUR won’t be available until the first week in November. Why am I raving about this phone, you may ask? Well this touch phone puts Social Media in the forefront of its main functions. MOTOBlUR gives you the ability to see your Social Media updates on the phone without having to log into each individual website. Not only can you see your Facebook and Twitter updates but your can also respond or reply to these updates.

The Motorola CLIQ uses the Google Android platform. If you are not fond of  having  just touch access on your phone the CLIQ also has a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out of the bottom of the phone. I am really excited about the potential of this phone. My only problem is that I would be looking at going back to a 2 year contract with T-Mobile. I currently have a month to month payment plan with my cell phone provider that has worked very well for me up till now.

After taking a look at the above video please give me your thoughts in commenting on this new phone and let me know what made you switch to your current touch screen phone.

All the best

JB

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If you have not seen this video yet you are in for a treat. The creator of the video, Erik Qualman is also the author of the book Socialnomics: How social media transforms our lives and the way we do business.  Now be prepared the video goes at a fast clip and you may need to pause it or watch it more than one time like I did.  Even if  you have to watch it over and over again it is worth it because of the astounding statistics it give on the comparison of social media over traditional media.

The video stars by asking you a simple question. Is Social Media a Fad? It then goes on to inform you of some amazing figures about social media. My personal favorite: If Facebook were a country it would be the worlds 4th largest behind the United States and ahead of countries like Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan.  Facebook’s growth rate in 9 month, more than doubles what the television did in 13 years and  the Internet did in 3 years.

So what does all this mean for Solopreneurs like you and me? Well, for one it means that we can reach more people with a viral Youtube video and a free Twitter account than all of the viewership of last years baseball World Series. By the way I watch more baseball games via the MLB TV channel on the Internet than I have watched my whole adult life as a baseball fan.

I watched today’s Yankees/Rays game and was able to connect with Yankee fans via Twitter who were watching the game and Tweeting at the same time from all over the world.

Baseball may seem boring and not as exciting as some of the other sports like Football and Basketball but they are sure using some of the social media tools in order to bring even more eyeballs to their product. I even met a new friend on Facebook who shares the same passion as I do for my beloved Yankees yet he lives farther from the Bronx than I do.  Nate is a family man with a wife and kids just like myself.  We share the adoration of our Yankees but we also share another passion in using social media and the Internet to promote ourselves and our businesses.

Nate has an online store that sells shoes and accessories for people who have a love for clogging. What is clogging you may ask? Well according to Wikipedia Clogging is a type of folk dance with roots in traditional European dancing from the British Isles, early African-American dance, and traditional Cherokee dance in which the dancer’s footwear is used musically by striking the heel, the toe, or both in unison against a floor or each other to create audible percussive rhythms. Why do I tell you all of this? Its because while Nate and I have only met and known each other through Facebook and Twitter I was fascinated by his use of social media to promote his Clogon.com store.

Nate is a true case study of how one uses and embraces Socialnomics. All Nate did was make a comment on one of my famous Facebook updates saying that the Yankees won again and now I am writing this blog post about him and his business. I currently have over 2800 friends on Facebook but it only took one comment from Nate to get me to his profile that lead me to  his website that then lead me to his blog and to my amazement lead me to the reading and viewing  of more information about clogging.

I don’t know if I will ever meet Nate in person and I am almost sure I will never put on a clogging shoe but our shared love for the Yanks and social media will keep us connected. So if you are still stuck in the rut of traditional economics I suggest you follow Erik Qualman @equalman and Nate @mollermarketing on Twitter and get with this Socialnomics program.

All the best and GO YANKEES..;-)

JB

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