I’m pleased to announce, that in addition to my Marketing and Social Media consulting business, I have now launched a new venture called WebinarListings.  Through hosting a few of my own Webinars (online seminars), I noticed that there was no central website for hosts to promote their webinars, or for people to find out about them.  So, I created one!  Today is the beta launch of my site, and it will eventually be FULL of a variety of Webinars for all interest areas (business, health, technology, etc), in any part of the world. Right now it happens to be focused on marketing, social media, technology because that is where my connections are, but that will soon change. Webinars are a great way to learn new things right from your computer AND are free most of the time.

So, if you’re interested, I invite you to check out the site, and connect with me in any way you choose (many options below!), especially by signing up for the weekly newsletter.  During the beta period, the more traffic and registrations/followers I build, the more interest hosts will have to list their webinars with me… so I’m counting on you! If you hear of any Webinars being put on, please pass them my way so I can contact the host. And feel free to tweet, blog, facebook update, talk, or spread the word in any way.

I’m also running an introduction promotion for this week only (through the 14th) — use promo code “intro50″ for your Featured Webinar listing and get 50% off your Webinar.

I’m really excited about this, as it is really putting to use the skills I have in social media, marketing and Webinars. I’m looking forward to seeing where this takes me!

WebinarListings contact info:

Let me know what you think!  I’ll take all the feedback I can get.

Last week, I found out about a really cool new toolbar for websites called Wibiya. I asked them for a beta invite and they said it would be launching to the general public soon (I guess I wasn’t special enough!), and sure enough, I was notified about it today.  So, what do I think?  Well, considering I was inspired to write a blog post about it within 15 minutes of installing it, I’d say I like it! :-)

So, what is Wibiya?  If you’re viewing this post on my website, just look down at the bottom to the pink bar.  If not, here a screen shot of it broken into 2 parts.

What it does essentially is bring your social media components (and a few other things) all to one place, and a place that is available everywhere on your site.  People can do the following right from the toolbar:

• Facebook
  • update their status (with automatic link to your site)
  • become a fan of your Facebook page
• Twitter
  • see your tweets
  • follow you on Twitter
  • tweet (with an automatically shortened link to your site)
• Blog
  • subscribe to your RSS feed
  • See your recent posts
• Search your site
• Chat with others
• Message your site visitors
• Translate your site into different languages

…all without leaving your site.  There are also a bunch of other apps, such as photo galleries and YouTube integration, that you can easily install.  What a great way to give people the functionality they want, without forcing them to leave your website and you never get them back.  Sure, most of these tools are available with other WordPress plugins, but it’s great to have everything in one place, so you can fill your site with more good content.

In addition to all of this functionality for your site visitors, you get analytics too!  So, as soon as I posted on Twitter, I could see how many people were visiting which pages, and where in the world they are.  What a great way to get instant feedback, to see if people are driven to your site.  It also shows you overall stats for the past 7 days, including assumed bounce rate reduction, and new RSS registrations.

As I said, I JUST downloaded this 1/2 hour ago, so I’m still poking around.  But, overall, this is a VERY cool app… a definite BUY recommendation from me! Oh, wait, it’s free.  :-)

What do you think? Have you discovered anything I haven’t mentioned above? Any downsides you see?

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I attended the Inbound Marketing Summit conference put on by New Marketing Labs at the Gillette Stadium. Attending this conference was an interesting milestone for me, as it is where I really got my start in social media last year.  Day 1 of the conference last year I showed up without a computer and barely any knowledge of Twitter (I was registered but wasn’t using it, and didn’t “get it”) and much of social media.  Day 2, I showed up with my laptop, and started tweeting.  I haven’t stopped since, and have learned so much since that time about other forms of social media, and have put them into practice at work and through consulting projects.  A lot changed for me in that year.

Anyway, the conference was even more incredible than it was last year, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite quotes/learnings. (Not necessarily quoted word for word; and if you know who said some of the unknown quotes or if I made any errors, please let me know!)

Day 1

• How do you engage customers without pissing them off? Just need to listen. And then figure out WHEN in the conversation it’s right to jump in. ~Citrix (name?)
• SM needs to get out of the corporate communications group. It should be spread throughout the company ~Innovative marketing panel
• In terms if marketing, it’s not about the thickness if your wallet, it’s about the thickness of your mind. It’s a great time to be a poor marketer. ~Justin Rasmussen, Coffee House Ideas
• Who will own social media in the future? PR agencies, interactive agencies or ad agencies? Answer: The companies. ~Brian Halligan, Hubspot

• PR is dead. ~Brian Halligan, Hubspot (I couldn’t disagree more.  I do believe PR is changing, but it will never be dead.  The big difference I see is that rather than companies finding press, the press will be finding them.)

• People turn to social media traditionally to solve 3 problems: 1) sales 2) get the word out , 3) need to make a relationship better or change it.” ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners
• You need to look at your “share of suckiness” vs. your competitors. “We suck less” ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners (it’s important to look at what your detractors are saying, but also keep in mind industry norms for sentiment.)
• PR = helps groups communicate with one another and facilitate discussions. What is PR2.0? A new approach to PR (PR isn’t just media relations) — it’s about building long term relationships, and now we can do it directlly with the customer. ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners
• What is a social media press release? Integrating keywords, SEO, interactive content, links to SM sites, enabled for social media. ~”Getting the Word Out” panel
  
• Measure engagement (not impressions), which will then lead to sales. ~”Getting the Word Out” panel
• Marketing = getting people to know, like and trust you. ~Rich Ullman, Ripple6
• What do you say to the people that say they don’t have time to create good content? Tough! ~Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent
• If you’re doing SM, and not email, you’re insane. It has a $44 ROI per dollar spent, on an email campaign. ~Email panel
• Using purchased email lists is just spamming. The people didn’t sign up for the email. ~Email panel
• “Rented list” – means using another list to communicate your message (i.e Daily Candy). ~Email panel
• 20% of tweets mention brands (source http://bit.ly/MVSlV). Twitter users are twice as much likely to engage with brands than on other platforms. ~Jesse Engle, CoTweet
• For a company with multiple tweeters, it’s best to have logo as avatar, twitter background with faces/names of tweeters, and use cotags. ~Jesse Engle, CoTweet
• Kodak’s blog is not about the actual product, it’s about HOW we use our products. ~Jennifer Cisney, Kodak
• Cool free listening tool www.socialmention.com ~unknown
• How to get your video to go viral? Story, spectacle, emotion, conflict, questions. ~Tim Street, APE Digital

Day 2

• Listening helps you find ppl who are passionate about what you do, out on the web. That’s how you build a comunity centric way to market. ~Listening and monitoring panel
• Email’s role in the marketing mix is more important than ever. Email is a main DRIVER of social web activity. ~Greg Cangialosi, Blue Sky Factory
• The blog is the ANCHOR of our social media efforts. ~Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines
• Where else can you get immediate and passionate feedback from your customers other than in social media. ~Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines
• Social Media optimization created the findability of social objects – keywords, titles, descriptions, tags, syndication. ~Christopher Carfi, Cerado
• If there are a bunch of kids in a playground, and there are no toys there, they’re going to leave. (referring to making your Facebook and website interactive). ~CC Chapman, Campfire
• Everyone needs a CMS (even if it’s just WordPress), in order to update site,keywords, tags, etc. ~CMS panel
• Whereever you are finding the most uncomfortable information about you, look there 10 times harder! ~Tim Walker, Hoover’s
  
• What are Social Media Influencers (SIM)? Harnessing social media and social influencers to achieve a goal. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Market to the community not just the individual. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Social engagement results in purchases 24 days later on average. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Focus not just on the platforms, but on the relationsips… focus on WHO is influencing your customer. Research influencers. ~Ken Chow, R2 Integrated
• Great Marketing = Convince people to SELL. ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Google’s ranking algorithm = context (does it match what they’re looking for?) + authority (how much does Google trust you?). ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Titles are the most important piece of information you’re giving to Google about what the page is about.The MOST important is the one on your home page. Earlier words send a stronger message to Google. So, your title keywords need to be ordered appropriately. Don’t make your Home page titled HOME (even if you sell homes!. ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Don’t buy ads on Facebook. Use it to look at the demographic info to find who meets your target profile (brilliant!). (I don’t agree about not buying ads, but the target demos are great!). ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot

If you want to see even more highlights from me or others during the Inbound Marketing Summit, check the #IMS09 hashtag on Twitter Search.

Overall, an incredible conference!! A few suggestions for IMS next year. Include people’s Twitter names in the program, on their nametags,  and on the screen while their speaking. Improve the wireless.  Add a case study component… so many great minds together in one room!  We can break into a group of 10 and all work on a different case to put together a social media and marketing strategy and tactics.  Do short presentations so we can all learn from eachother.

(Photo credits: Group, Chris Brogan, iPhone, CC Chapman)

Anything important I missed?  Feel free to add or comment on the above!

I am pleased to report that I have accepted a new full time job! I will be the Director of Marketing and Social Media at Second Time Around, which is a consignment retailer with 19 stores in 8 eastern states (MA, NH, RI, ME, CT, VT, DC, NY).  Second Time Around (STA) recently got venture capital funding from Generation Equity Investors, so is slated for more growth in the coming years.  I got my offer on July 16th, which oddly enough is the one year anniversary of me being out of a full-time job.  What an odd coincidence!

As with any rapidly growing company I know I will be wearing many hats, but my overall responsibilities will be branding, strategy, social media, internet marketing and general marketing materials.  Second Time Around is already on Twitter (impressive!) (each store has its own account… @STAThayerSt, @STANeedham, @STASohoNY, etc.) and Facebook, but there is a lot of upside with these, and with the website.

So, how did I get the job?  I really WISH I could say I got it through a connection I made on Twitter.  Then maybe people would start believing that Twitter has merit and isn’t just about reporting when you go out for a cup of coffee :-)  But, although I did have many job interviews and leads from Twitter, this wasn’t one of them.  It was from old fashioned in-person networking.

I posted my resume on a site called Jewish Jobs back when I first lost my job.  Lisa Colton, the founder of Darim Online, was looking for someone with my background for some consulting work, so we started talking.   (Update: Lisa reminded me that she actually DID find me first on Twitter… go Twitter!) We kept in touch over a number of months, talking about how we could work together.  Then on June 17th, I got an email from Brian Colton (Lisa’s brother-in-law), a partner at Generation Equity, saying they were looking to fill a marketing position at their latest venture, and Lisa had given him my name.  One month later, on July 16th, STA offered me the job.  And, yesterday, I attended an all day offsite with the new Board of Directors.  My first official start date will be August 24th.

I am so excited for this new opportunity.  It is a great combination of an established company (the first store opened 35 years ago), and a start-up environment with the new infusion of capital and the growth plan.  I will be able to leverage my marketing skills from my consumer products background, but also my new social media skills.  There is a huge opportunity for STA with social media, and they are believers in it, so I am looking forward to implementing some creative ideas.  Overall, I think this is a place where I will be able to make an impact, which is one of the most (if not the most) important qualities for me in a job.

My next post will go more into my thoughts about this past year and what I learned.

Thank you to everyone who helped me this past year.  So many people touched me, and I could never have gotten this incredible job if it weren’t for you.  So, thanks.

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on June 17, 2009.

A few months, I was asked a question by a potential employer that I couldn’t answer “What do you think of what we are doing in social media?” I couldn’t answer it not because I didn’t know what he meant, but rather, that I hadn’t actually looked it up. Although social media is the area of marketing I am most interested in, I was still stuck in my old ways of researching a company… by looking at their website.

Doing thorough research of a company is one of the most important steps in preparing for an interview. Not that they will necessarily ask you the direct question that I got asked, but because it gives you the opportunity to bring up what you have researched, or just have a better understanding of how the company operates. Realizing this, put me into action to change the way I now research companies.

Here’s what I do now.

• I search for the company’s fan page on Facebook. I look what they have posted, and what their fans are posting about them. I do the same for YouTube.
• I find their corporate account on Twitter, and again, see what they are tweeting about. I also search on an application called Twellow, to find employees of the company, and see what they are writing about.
• I find their company profile on LinkedIn, and look up the profiles of some of the people I might be working with or key executives, and definitely the people I will be interviewing with. I find at least one item about a person that I have in common with them, so I can bring it up in the interview somehow.
• I do quick searches for the company and key people on Hoovers and Zoominfo. Other good websites include: Vault, Glassdoor, Lexis Nexis, Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance. Of course, there’s a good old search engine on the company’s name, or coupled with key words such as “good” or “bad.” Through looking at these sites, I also try to understand who the company’s major competitors are.
• Of course, I still look at the company’s website, and at a minimum, read the About Us section, the press section, and overall what the company has been doing. If they have a blog, I read the first few posts.

Spending the time doing this extensive research has really helped me better understand the mindset of the people and the company I’m interviewing with. Yesterday, I was asked in the interview what I thought of a company’s website, and I could give a very thorough analysis.

What do you think?  What are your preferred methods of researching a company prior to an interview?

I am honored to have received an invitation from BzzAgent’s Founder/CEO Dave Balter to review the private beta for the new product they are launching, called BzzScapes. I was invited with eleven other people, and am truly excited by this site, so wanted to talk a bit about it.

First… what is BzzAgent?  It’s a word of mouth marketing company.  The way it works, is that people sign up to be an “agent” for a particular brand’s campaign, they receive materials in the mail, and then report on their experiences.  For example, a few months back, I was an agent for the Boston Market campaign (completely unrelated to my Twitter name of @BostonMarketer!).  I received a package in the mail that educated me about Boston Market and gave me coupons to use. I was supposed to use the coupons and buy the product, and then report my experiences with the brand and with telling other people about the brand.  This model is incredibly successful at spreading the word about products and services.

About BzzScapes

But, being immersed in the online world, I had been surprised that BzzAgent didn’t have more of an online presence or plan for using online for word of mouth.  BzzScapes is their first answer to that question, with online communities that allow consumers to create, add to and interact with the brand “Scape”.  Consumers create a central place for content they find about brands they are interested in.  They can upload their favorite photos, videos, experiences, websites, etc. Anyone can create a Scape for a brand, anyone can add content to a Scape, and anyone can rate/review the content.  Community members can “follow” brands so they are updated when new content is added, and also follow and communicate with other community members.  The site has only been in beta testing until its launch this morning, but there are currently three thousand community members, 300 Scapes and 4,000 pieces of content already on the site.

All of this is free to the consumers and free to the brands, as it is all user uploaded content.  However, if a brand chooses to, they can pay BzzAgent $5,000/month to “activate” their brand, which gives them additional services.  For activated brands, BzzAgent will upload the brand’s content into the BzzScape (only consumers can rate content though).  The brand will also be promoted in certain areas throughout the site and in BzzAgent emails.  And, most importantly, the brand gets access to consumers, so can poll them, ask them questions and test out new ideas.  A brand can also pay BzzAgent to find new users for its Scape.


I LOVE the idea of BzzScapes, and think it is interesting from both the consumer and brand perspectives.

Consumer perspective

For consumers, this platform is interesting, as it allows people to connect with a brand and shape the way the Scape looks, without a corporate influence. Consumers have the opportunity to become an opinion leader in the eyes of the brand and other consumers.  And, they can connect with others who have a passion for the brand.

Brand perspective

For brands, this is like free marketing research.  They can see what consumers are uploading and how they are rating these items, which can provide valuable information about where people are focusing their attention.  Its giving the brand a window into the minds of people who want to engage with the brand. It can also help enhance a consumer’s loyalty and passion for the brand, by seeing more content about it.  With the “activation” option, having the ability to find your top supporters and detractors is something that often times can be difficult to do.  In addition, since each item is categorized into “type” (good, bad, why you buy, etc.), brands can track changes in the sentiment about the brand over time.

Another benefit to the brand is that bringing all this content together in one place will certainly have an impact in search engine rankings.

Landscape view of the Lego brand

My overall thoughts

I think this is an incredibly exciting and innovative way to build an online community, with content as opposed to conversation.  As a marketer, the benefits of being able to use the information in the BzzScape is a great addition to other research and data.  And, being able to reach out to supporters/detractors is invaluable.  Like any research, however, it needs to be looked at in a context of other data, and analyzed for it’s inherent potential biases.  For example, I would imagine that people who participate in a Scape will more likely than not be passionate fans, and secondly passionate detractors, but not much in the middle.

I also see the Scapes as encouraging loyalty solely by people participating in the Scape.  By talking to others, seeing more content, they may become even more loyal.

A primary way I see these Scapes becoming viral is for people to use the Share  feature in BzzScapes, where you can click a button to share content on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, etc.  The sharing option is there, but could be beefed up on the site a bit more, by suggesting sharing when a person is engaged with rating or commenting.

One concern I had is surrounding transparency, which is something important for success in social media.  I was concerned that consumers would think that the brand owners rated their content highly in order to make their BzzScape look more favorable.  But, Dave educated me that brands that are “activated” are not able to rate their own content (they can just add content).  I think this is something that needs to be communicated, to educate consumers that the Scapes are consumer generated and driven.

In order to start a new Scape and have it visible to others, a consumer needs to upload five pieces of content, which seems to be a high barrier to participation.  I’m not sure why there needs to be a limit, but if there is, I believe that three would be more reasonable.

What do you think of this new product?  How do you see it being used?  Would you participate as a consumer or as a brand owner?

Note: The original post with comments is now ineditable, so has been recreated here. Please see the old post if you’re interested in the comments!

There are so many Twitter applications, I can’t keep track! So, I decided to start this list as a comprehensive place to list all the Twitter programs. I plan to keep this updated as I find out about new applications. If you have any to add, please leave a comment below, and I’ll add them. Or, if you feel I have described the applications incorrectly, please let me know as well! (ones in bold italics in the chart have been added since the last update)

*Note – See below for a list of even more programs and non-iPhone mobile applications. Any mobile applications are denoted with [m].

140it – Shrink your tweets directly from Twitter, using this browser button.

BackTweets – This application will search Twitter for links to a certain website, even if they are shortened. I have an RSS feed set up for my website, and have seen many times where people tweeted about my post without me knowing it. It give me the opportunity to

Backupify – A free backup service for Twitter, and many other social media applications, including Facebook, WordPress, Flickr, Delicious.  You can choose daily or weekly backups, and get a pdf of the backup.  Very cool application.

Birdhouse [m] – Capture your ideas, save them for later and publish them when you’re ready. Quickly jot down your ideas, just like in Notes. Count down to 140 characters, just like in Twitter. Save as many as you want, revisit them later. Capture your ideas offline, even in Airplane mode. Rate drafts with stars and sort by best or by newest. Manage and publish from multiple Twitter accounts. Unpublish the bad ones just as easily. Back everything up through email. $3.99 on iPhone store.e

BlastFollow – This is a great tool to follow a bunch of people with a similar interest all at once based on a hashtag.  So, if you’re at an event or on a webinar, enter the hashtag, and you’ll automatically follow everyone using that hashtag.   Simple but very useful.

Brizzly – A web-based Twitter client that has multi-account (including Facebook) and list support.  It also has a “mute” feature where you can mute a particular person if they’re tweeting too much (!), but you need to be using their interface to actually have the mute work.

BubbleTweet – Create a short video that pops up as a “bubble” over your Twitter profile page. Here’s an example. Cool service, but the bubble only shows up if you use the BubbleTweet URL given to you. So, anyone who just goes through Twitter.com won’t see your bubble.

ChatterBox – ChatterBox allowsho you to monitor Twitter conversations that matter to you. Whether it is a list of interesting keywords or specific user handles, ChatterBox can centralize that information into a common dashboard that individuals and teams can leverage to manage and respond to those conversations. Easily assign workflows, prioritize, tag and assign those interactions to team members ensuring that all tweets are responded to in a timely manner. Looks great for company use.

ClickableNow – Clickable Now is a plugin you’re your browser that allows you to add clickable images to your Twitter background, and allows you to see the clickable backgrounds of other tweeters.

ConversationList – A “conversationlist” is a Twitter list of the people that you talk to (and about) on Twitter. The list is automatically updated daily, so that it always reflects the people that you are paying attention to right now.  Cool application, but I don’t really see a use for it.  Also, if someone uses ListWatcher, it’s constantly telling them they have dropped from or have been added to your list.

Doesfollow – A simple program that does one thing… tells you if one user is following another user. It gives you a “yup” or a “nope” answer. I use it if for some reason I’m curious about if someone is following me (don’t use too often).

DM Deleter – This application will delete all the DM’s in your account. Apparently this saves Twitter money, because you help them conserve server space.

ExecTweets – Helps you find and follow the top business executives on Twitter.

Filttr – A program that allows you to adjust the tweets you see. You can increase or decrease certain people, and increase or decrease what you see from certain keywords. Great idea! They should integrate this into Tweetdeck! But, I can definitely use this as-is.

Followformation – I have not tested this application, because it does not use Oauth. Followformation is a tool for novice Twitter users to get started with following the top people in their categories of interest. It’s like Twitter’s suggested users list, but uses a few sources, such as We Follow, Twitterholic, and GeoFollow. Up to 10% of the auto-followed lists from any category will be paid placements.

Followize – This app’s description is “It’s a powerful, streamlined interface to Twitter which makes following lots of people and conversations quicker and easier.” But, honestly, when I sign in, I have NO idea what it does, or what the benefit is.

Freetwitterdesigner – Allows you to create a customized Twitter background with text, shapes and images.

FriendDeck – Described as “Tweetdeck for Friendfeed“. Seems amazing for those who use Friendfeed.

Friendfeed – “Helps you discover and discuss interesting stuff that your friends and family find on the web.” Basically, it allows you to see what your friends are sharing (and share yours with them) on various websites across the internet, including web pages, videos, photos, and music. It’s used for sharing, idea generation, conversation, marketing, etc. It’s used for much more than just Twitter. Seems great, but it’s just too much information for me right now. I will probably be an addict at some point soon.

Friendorfollow – Shows you who you are following that’s not following you back? Who’s following you that you’re not following back. I don’t use this… too much information for me. Gives you 3 tabs:

• Followers – those you are following who are not following you
• Fans – those who are following you but you’re not following them back
• Friends – Mutual follow

Greasemonkey – See bio text, following & follower count, and most recent Tweet for all friends and followers on the Twitter follow or friends list. Seems great! But, I use Topify to decide who to follow.

Grouptweet – Allows you to create a group to tweet with privately (i.e. bostontweeters). I haven’t found a need for this yet, but see that it could be useful for a work situation.

Hootsuite (formerly Brightkit) – HootSuite allows you to manage multiple Twitter profiles and pre-schedule tweets. Their newest feature allows you to link Hootsuite account with Google Adsense, so you can send links with banner ads. Here’s an example of what it looks like (see top banner). This is the only feature I’m using for now, although I am undecided as to how I feel about sending links with ads. (Thoughts? Let me know below!)

HowSociable – A free tracking/monitoring application that shows you how visible a brand is on the social web. 1,000 is the average brand, so higher or lower indicates something about your brand.  It can also send you a monthly email updating your score.

Klout – Klout allows you to track the impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph. They collect data about the content you create, how people interact with that content and the size and composition of your network. Then they analyze the data to find indicators of influence and then provide you with innovative tools to interact with and interpret the data. Very cool application!  This is quickly becoming a widely used tool by companies to determine key influencers.

Listorious – Listorious makes it easy to find the best lists of Twitter users on any given topic, and for list creator to publicize their lists.  You can also follow lists directly from the application.  This is a great way to find lists in a particular area of interest.

ListWatcher – A great application that works by just following @ListWatcher.  It sends you a DM when any of the following happens:

• Someone adds you to a list
• Someone deletes you from a list
• A list with you is made private or deleted
• A list containing you is renamed

This is a great application so you know what lists you are on.  My only complaint is that it doesn’t filter out the Conversationlist activity, which changes every day, so that makes for a lot of useless DM’s.

Monitter – Similar to Tweetdeck, it’s a twitter monitor, it lets you “monitter” the twitter world for a set of keywords and watch what people are saying.

Muuter – A GREAT tool that allows you to temporarily unfollow someone if they’re tweeting a lot. If they’re at an event, and are tweeting too much, just mute them!

My First Follow – This application will tell you who you first followed on Twitter. I’m not sure what this shows you, but people do seem to use it!

MyCleenr – MyCleenr is a unique way to sort your friends by their last tweets. It allows you to get rid off all the inactive and useless accounts that you are following!

Mr. Tweet – Does 3 things:

1. Suggest good people and followers you are missing out on
2. Recommend you to enthusiastic users relevant to you
3. Regularly update useful stats of your Twitter usage

I prefer to find people to follow myself, so I don’t use this application.

My Tweeple – Shows you who you’re following who is not following you back, and vise versa. It’s similar to Friendorfollow, but the display is more cumbersome.

Nearby Tweets – A geography–centric social tool for networking and a business tool for building customer relationships and monitoring real–time buzz. Creates a geographic layer on top of Twitter.

Newsgetter – Allows you to search for certain terms, and save your searches to return to later.

Objectivemarketer – A centralized campaign manager. Deliver a message to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.   Then track and analyze responses to messages.  Schedule posts, including recurring posts.  Create automatic posts from an RSS  feed.

Peoplebrowsr – Similar to Tweetdeck, but web based. I love Tweetdeck too much to consider anything else!

Peepnote – A contact manager for Twitter.  Tag and filter the people  you follow, add notes to remember who they are, and export custom lists to Twitter.

Pluggio – This is a web-based Twitter app that has  many of the features of other Twitter clients.   The one feature I used regularly is that you can set up certain keywords to get notified when they are used, and follow those people.  You can put even put parameters about the people to be notified about, such as their follower/following ratio, number of tweets, etc.

Qwitter – Emails you when someone stops following you. I use Socialtoo for this purpose.

retweetrank – Retweet rank is a representative of the number of times a user have been retweeted by others recently. The application tells you our Retweet rank, and percentile. I like this service a lot, as I think that how much a person retweets, is a strong indicator of the value they are bringing to Twitter.

Retweet Radar – Finds trends in the mountains of information ‘retweet’ed on Twitter. Shows you top retweeted people and links. Cool program.

Rate My Talk – Rate My Talk (@talkr on Twitter) is a service that allows conference attendees to provide immediate feedback on a conference via Twitter or through our web site. This data is collected and provided on the site in order to provide accurate feedback on valuable (or not) presentations. Seems like a great service… I’ll definitely check it out if I’m ever a speaker!

ReFollow – A GREAT app that lets you unfollow people who don’t tweet, follow people who tweet about you, etc.  A great way to clean up who you’re following.

Repeets – Counts how many retweets a tweet gets, and tweets about the most retweeted ones (wow, that’s a mouthful). Follow @repeets to get updates.

ReTweetability – The ReTweetability Index measures and ranks Twitter users based on the infectious power of their tweets. This number accounts for number of followers and Tweets overall, so it is a true indicator of infectiousness. Users with a high ReTweetability Index have a greater percentage of their content spread by a greater percentage of their followers, implying that when they do tweet, it’s worth reading. I really like this application, as I do believe that a person’s “retweetability” is a strong indicator of their perceived Twitter value.

ReTweetist – Tracks posts that are retweeted to see what the most valued topics are.

ScoutLabs – A paid tracking/monitoring web-based application that tracks social media and finds signals in the noise. The application  costs $250/month. “Scout Labs helps your team find signals in the noise — what to pay attention to, what customers are ranting and raving about, what’s new and emerging.”

Secretweet – SecretTweet was created to allow Twitter users to share secrets anonymously. Basically, you go to their website, and tweet your secret and they tweet it out to their 10,000 followers. People can even comment on it. Some of the tweets are hysterical/scary!

Shorttext – Shorttext allows you very quickly to write a longer tweet or note, and create a URL for it. When I have more to say than 140 characters (especially if I’m copying an email I’ve received or something similar), you paste it in Shorttext, and it instantly gives you a URL for the copy. It’s not just a program for Twitter, but is very useful as a companion application for Twitter.

Searchtastic – Search tweets from months ago (Twitter keeps only 7 days of tweets).  Download the results to Excel.

Seesmic Desktop – Desktop application similar to Tweetdeck, but with multiple account management. I find the application very confusing to use.

Smub – Shortens urls on a handheld and tweets them automatically. (also can be used for Facebook, Delicious, etc.)

SocialOomph (formerly known as Tweet Later)- You can do numerous things with this site. First, you can use it to set up alerts to track keywords you are interested in. You can also schedule tweets at certain scheduled times. And, you can auto follow or auto DM. I use the scheduled tweets feature.  Also newly added, is the ability to block auto-DM’s.

Splitweet – Similar to Tweetdeck, but it allows you to manage multiple accounts. I do need multiple account support, but I am too in love with Tweetdeck, so am waiting for them to come out with this functionality (coming soon).

SocialMention – A free tracking/monitoring application that has a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information. It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc. You can also receive daily alerts, or put a widget on your website.

Socialtoo – This program allows you to do multiple things:

• Received an email telling you who followed you and who unfollowed you the day before, and what you tweeted before that happened
• Autofollow people
• Opt out of auto DM’s (they used to offer an auto-DM service, but no longer do)
• Conduct surveys

The only part of the program I use is the first one… Socialtoo emails me every day with who followed me and unfollowed me yesterday. I usually scan quickly to see if there were tweets that are particularly popular or unpopular, so I can notice a trend. I also look to see who unfollowed me, so I know that they are no longer following.

Tagalus – Allows you to find out the “definition” of a particular hashtag.

Tagdef – Definition of Twitter tags, similar to Tagalus. You can also tweet @tagdef and say “Define #xxx” and it will define it for you.

TBUZZ – Makes it easy to tweet the page you’re on, or follow the buzz around it. Using a toolbar button, you can automatically tweet the shortened link and even copy and paste text easily.

Techrigy – This is a paid tracking/monitoring application that marketers can get a full view of their marketing landscape by listening to their consumers online. It enables organizations to:

• Understand consumers’ reactions to all marketing campaigns irrespective of channel
• Monitor brand reputation
• Identify Influencers
• Undertake proper competitive analysis and market research
• Support loyalty initiatives and programs
• Engage directly with customers online

Tinychat – Create your own chatroom and invite people through one simple link. Not just for Twitter use, but it is a useful tool for Twitter users. It’s pretty basic (no sound alerts, etc), but it does the trick.

TopFollowFriday – Shows you who is endorsing who and who is being endorsed on #followfriday. The results don’t look accurate to me.

Topify – This is one of my favorite applications! What this application does, is makes your email work much better for you with Twitter. When you receive an email about a new follower, instead of being without any information about the followee, it will include their bio and basic stats. And, directly from the email you can follow the person! It also allows you to reply to a DM directly from email.

Twalala – Twalala allows you to control what you see and don’t see in your twitterstream. You can filter tweets out of your stream by keywords and phrases or mute individuals who get a bit too chatty. Twitter with a mute button! Great concept, except you have to use their interface for it to work. It would be great, if the selections here, would be active no matter what Twitter client you used.

TwapperKeeper – Create a permanent archive of a hashtag, keyword or person.  Great app, given how quickly Twitter makes tweets unavailable.

Twazzup – I really like this application. It’s basically Twitter Search, but groups the results together in a more meaningful way. It shows you real time tweets, real time photos, most popular links, and top trendmakers. Very useful.

TweetpML – One of my favorite applications for Lists.  TweepML is a simple format to make it easy for people to share a list of Twitter users.  You can follow the list right from the application, and you can even automatically follow all members of the list, or just certain members.

Tweepsearch – Similar to Twellow, this program searches bios for a particular keyword. But, it can also search the bios of your followers only, which can be very useful.

Tweet Backup – Gives you the ability to export all your posts and friends (will be able to restore in a few weeks as well). After a recent issue with my account (my following count doubled overnight), I signed up for this, just for peace of mind.

Tweetake – Another way to backup your tweets.  The site was down when I was writing this, so I don’t have more to say!

Tweetbeep – Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything, with hourly updates. You can even keep track of who’s tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL (like tinyurl.com). Great for online reputation management, catching all your @replies, finding job/networking opportunities, keeping up on your favorite hobby, and more!

Tweetburner – The program was down when I went to review it, but it looks like it’s a URL shortening and tracking program. It tracks how many clicks your tweet gets, and allows you to analyze which headlines work best, and at what time of day your tweets get the most clicks.

Tweetchat – This program aggregates all tweets for a certain hashtag into a chat room. The benefit of using this vs. Twitter Search for hashtags, is that when you write your tweet, you don’t have to add the hashtag, as it is added automatically — a HUGE timesaver and is so much easier. Also, you can tweet directly from Tweetchat, so there is no need to flip back to twitter to enter a tweet. I use this whenever I’m on a webinar or at an event… amazing!

TweetConvo – TweetConvo is a great application to view twitter conversations. Rather than going through of a tweet’s @replies to get a grasp of the conversation you just enter the tweet’s URL, and it shows you the conversation for that tweet.

Tweetdeck – I can’t say enough about this program. Basically, Tweetdeck shows your Twitter feed in columns of information based on your preferences, rather than one long stream. For example, I use the following columns: All tweets, bostonmarketer, direct messages, friends, thought leaders, companies, twitter stuff, and jobs. This allows me to keep a better eye on things that interest me. You can also see your Facebook friends’ updates right in the application. You can click to see anyone’s profile, and from there add them to a particular column. It has a URL shortener build in, which is invaluable. I find this useful for my job search as I keep columns of job search twitter id’s.

TweetGrid – Create a Twitter Search Dashboard. Looks similar to Tweetdeck, but you can also tweet from multiple accounts. I liked most everything about this program, except that the avatars are very small, so I found it difficult to use.

Tweetmanager – Does a variety of things:

• follow and track Twitter users automatically based on certain keywords
• send a message to 1,000 users or less
• autoreply to @replies (can be used like an out of office message)
• auto-post tweets at predetermined times
• auto-tweet when you update your blog

I’m not currently using this application, but think it has some amazing features.

Tweetmeme -This app aggregates all the popular links on twitter to determine which links are popular. It even puts the links into categories so you can view it by categories you’re intereseted in or just subscribe to the RSS for each. Popular items get tweeted automatically by the Tweetmeme Twitter account.

TweetMic [m] – Great app that allows you to make high-quality audio recordings and publish them directly to Twitter. There is no limit to the length of audio recording you can make! VERY easy app that allows you to create variety in your Twitter stream.

TweetMiner – Allows you to load RSS feeds into this Twitter Client, tag them to be tweeted, and schedule the time to tweet them. VERY cool application that could be very useful. However, there is no way to import your current RSS subscriptions, so you need to add each one individually.

Tweetmondo – Shows you other Twitter users close to you. Cool visual results.

Tweet O’Clock – Type in a Twitter username to find out when it’s best to tweet them.

TweetReach – Tells you how far a URL, hashtag or tweet reached on Twitter. Shows # tweets, # people, tweet types, impressions and contributors tweeters. Great for analyzing an event.

TweetReports – Monitor your brand and online reputation –  track customer sentiment, receive real-time search results, analytics, reports, or research SEO keywords to attract a larger audience. This is a paid service, from $9-299/mo for individuals to enterprise accounts.

Tweetspinner – Does a number of things, many of which are GREAT for businesses… overall, great app!

• Create and schedule smart tweets – create tweet templates, and Tweetspinner will rotate what it tweets for you
• Schedule rotation of profiles and designs
• Smart friends and followers – keyword following (find users who tweet certain words and automatically follow them), purge non reciprocal folllowers, mimic following (follow the followers of another user), location filtering (awesome! but you need to upgrade to use)

Tweetstalk – A program that allows you to follow someone without having them know you are following them. Maybe it’s because I’m not a stalker, but I can’t imagine why this would be useful!

Tweetstats -This program graphs your Twitter stats for you, including tweets per hour, tweets per month, tweet timeline, reply statistics and more. Interesting to look at occasionally.

Tweetree – Tweetree puts your Twitter stream in a tree so you can see the posts people are replying to in context. It also pulls in lots of external content like twitpic photos, youtube videos and more, so that you can see them right in your stream without having to click through every link your friends post.

Tweetsmarter – Adds special characters (like a star or an umbrella) or a retweet link to your post.

TweetStack [m] – Best described as Tweetdeck for mobile phones. Stacks are similar to columns in TweetDeck, and can even be imported directly from TweetDeck. You can also search, and use multiple account logins.

TweetValue – Tells you the monetary value of your Twitter account. Just for fun!

Tweetvisor – A web-based Twitter interface, that enables people to better manage multiple Twitter accounts, returns real-time updates about favorite topics, news and tweets, and supports groups, threaded conversations, tagging friends and inline video replies. Similar to Peoplebrowsr

Tweetworks – Does a lot, but the 2 most basic are: Twitter groups (similar to Group Tweet) and threaded discussions, which allow you to see tweets strung together in a conversation. I am a member of one group. But, because I use Tweetdeck, I don’t use the threaded conversation feature much.

Twellow – A search program that also searches bios, names and locations. It also has a graphical interface that enables localized searching. VERY useful, if you are trying to find someone, or target particular people.

Twhirl – Desktop program similar to Tweetdeck, but it allows you to manage multiple accounts. I do need multiple account support, but I am waiting for Tweetdeck to come out with this functionality.

Twibes – Application that allows you to join groups on Twitter

Twickie – Twickie is a free service that fetches Twitter replies for you (and gives you an easy way to view AND export them).

Twidget – A widget for OS X that allows you to update your Twitter status.

Twilert – An application that emails you regular updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service or any other keyword. Great program, but (as expected!), I use Tweetdeck for this.

Twimailer – Rather than receiving the plain emails from Twitter notifying you of a new follower (include just their name), Twimailer sends you their statistics and their last few tweets. Very cool! To me, the major limitation is that you still have to click through to their profile to follow them. Topify solves that issue, which is why I use that application instead.

Twinfluence – Another Twitter grading tool that measures the combined influence of twitterers and their followers.

Twintro – “Twitter Introductions” – Helps you discover the most interesting Twitter users. You follow @twintro, and every day, Twintro retweets a different user’s tweets to you. If you like that user, follow them!

TwitBizCard – Set up your business card on their website, and then add #twtbizcard to a @reply to send your contact information to someone. Very easy!

TwitLonger – Twitlonger is a way to let you post to Twitter when 140 characters just isn’t enough. You can write what you need and a link to what you said will automatically be posted to your Twitter account. It’s similar to TwtLong. It’s like TwitPic for text.

TwtLong – Twitlonger is a way to let you post to Twitter when 140 characters just isn’t enough. You can write what you need and a link to what you said will automatically be posted to your Twitter account. It’s similar to TwitLonger.

Twit Truth – I LOVE this app! Shows you great analytics on your twitter account, for top Twitter users, and anyone else you want to look up. It shows you the stats below, and also characterizes your tweeting with a descriptor (i.e. I’m an “Engager”), average tweets per day, average response time and breaks down your tweets by type.

Twitalyzer – Analyzes your Twitter performance based on 5 factors: impact, engagement, generosity, velocity and clout.That’s great for analyzing your performance over time.  In addition, Twitalyzer shows clickthrough rate, gives you recommendations to improve your scores, shows a sentiment analysis of your account, and many more features!  There’s also a Premium application that you can pay for.

Twitcam -Allows you to stream live on Twitter VERY easily. Just logon (no OAuth yet unfortunately) and start broadcasting. It tweets a message immediately on Twitter letting your followers know, so they can come watch you, and use text chat to talk to you or eachother. And, it archives your video for viewing later on (cool!)

Twithear – Lets you add your voice on twitter. Call a phone number or use your computer to record a message.

Twithority – Similar to Twitter Search, but it allows you to see the results by user “authority” (the more followers, the more “authority”).

Twitoria – Twitoria finds your friends that haven’t tweeted in a long time so you can give them the boot! Great application, but I just don’t have the time nor see the need to go through and clean out my followers (especially if they’re not tweeting).

TWItoSHIRT – Get a T-shirt made with your tweets!

TwitPic – Allows you to easily post a photo on Twitter. Just browse to the photo, and it creates a link. It’s built directly into Tweetdeck, so it’s easy to use from there!

Twitscoop – Through an automated algorithm, twitscoop crawls hundreds of tweets every minute and extracts the words which are mentionned more often than usual. The result is displayed in a Tag Cloud, using the following rule: the hotter, the bigger. This is also integrated with Tweetdeck, so is easy to check.

Twittas – As they say, “A new useless app every week.” Includes, when you’ll hit 1 million tweets, what your first tweet was, your first follower was, etc.

Twittelator Pro [m] – A paid Twitter application for the iPhone (cost is $3.99). Great application that has list support, auto-hashtags, multi-accounts, etc.  This is the application I’ve seen that has the most customization available.  It’s only downside is it’s long load time.

TwitterSheep – See a tag cloud from the ‘bios’ of your twitter flock.

Twitter Snipe – Helsp you find people to follow based on certain criteria. Paid application $77.

TwitterSnooze – Allows you to temporarily stop seeing someone’s tweets (i.e. if they are at a conference you just need a break). The downside is that it actually unfollows and then refollows that person. Note: This application has been out of service for a while now, but I keep hoping it will come back!

Twitrans – Translates your tweets into any language.

TwitStamp – TwitStamp allows you to use your current Twitter status anywhere – in the form of an image so you can post it on blogs, forums, websites, etc.

Twitter Buttons – Create a button for your website that says “Follow Me”!

Twitter Grader – Tells you what your Twitter grade is — it’s based on the #of followers, #you follow, etc. You can also find out who the Twitter elite are in a certain area.

Twitter Karma – An application that fetches your friends and followers from Twitter when you click the “Whack!” button, then displays them for you, letting you paginate through them. By default, the list contains all your friends and followers and is sorted by last update, showing those who most recently updated first. You can sort and filter the list. Similar to Friendorfollow, but with better interface.

Twitter Local – Allows you to filter tweets by location. I’m not currently using this, but can definitely see a use for it, particularly if you travel a lot.

Twitter Safe – Backs up your followers, following and replies. I’m not using this… maybe I’m just too trusting that I will not lose everything.

Twitter Search (formerly Summize) – A mandatory for Twitter users. Type in any search term (including AND, OR, quotes) and see what’s happening on Twitter for that search. Also shows you trending topics. Clicking on “Advanced” lets you get more detailed in your search, including tweets from one person to another, date, attitude and place.

Twitter Toolbar – This short cut/quicklinks toolbar brings Twitter closer to you, so you can: visit Twitter, update your Twitter status directly, search Google, Twitter Search, Twellow, Twictionary, optimize your Twitter experience and research the world of Twitter.

Twittercounter – Give you TONS of stats about your profile, including a graph of your follower numbers, growth, rank, etc.

Twitterfall – Allows you to search on a particular term, and have the resuts fall in a real update. Cook when twets are moving quicly!

Twitterfeed – Automatically posts your blog RSS feed and post to Twitter for you. You can also use this with services other than Twitter.

Twitterfriends – With TwitterFriends you can …

• find out the hidden network of Twitter contacts that are really relevant for you.
• visualize the network of your relevant contacts and their contacts
• see who of your Twitter friends are online this very moment
• read some stats about your Twitter account
• take a look at the most conversational Twitterers or those who are posting the most links

Wow, there’s a lot of great information here, but I found it to be too much!

TwitterHawk – Very interesting program, but a bit controversial. This program will automatically send pre-written tweets (that you have written) to people who tweet certain keywords. For example, if you have a coffee shop, the program can send tweets to everyone who mentions coffee. Controversial because it may seem like spam.

Twitterholic – Allows you to see rankings by #followers, #friends, #updates and date joined. You can also see these stats for a particular user over time. Good program, I just don’t have a need for it.

TwitterFox – A Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ tweets on Twitter. This extension adds a tiny icon on the status bar which notifies you when your friends update their tweets. Also it has a small text input field to update your tweets.

Twitterific [also m] – Similar to Twhirl in that it allows you to manage multiple accounts, but it doesn’t have multiple columns of information. (MAC only)

Twittez – Twittez is a simple Twitter application that lets you get your answers from fellow Twitters, all you have to do is tweet with “does anyone know?” with your question and they try to find your answer.

Twitpay – Allows you to send and receive money from someone else on Twitter. Very cool program, I just haven’t needed it yet.

Twitseeker – Finds people on Twitter based on what they’re talking about. Cool! I searched for Marketing, and it came up with a list of 20 people who have been tweeting about Marketing. Very useful, especially for my job search.

Twitter [m] (formerly Tweetie) [m] – iPhone application that handles multiple accounts, search, retweet, DM. Very user friendly and clear.  Recently Tweetie launched a new version called Tweetie2. While there is much more functionality, including lists, it has major problems with caching (you need to reload tweets you’ve already seen again), so I’m not using it anymore. Too bad, it used to be an amazing application.

TwittLink – They monitor almost every post on Twitter and extract all tweeted links. Using a statistical approach they figure out which subjects (based on extracted links) are most discussed on twitter. They use semantic analysis to group links that talk about the same subject. Similar to Twitscoop.

Twollo – This program finds people for you to follow based on your interests. Twollo will find them and automatically follow them for you.

Twtpoll – A very simple, easy to use program that helps you set up a poll. Type in your question and answers, and go!

TwtBizCard – Send a business card to someone by just adding #twtbizcard to any tweet! It’s great to use when meeting people at a Tweetup.

Twtcard – Send a greeting card, a surprise message, or an invitation on Twitter or via email.

Twtvite – Simple event manager twitter application… like Evite for people on Twitter. The application also gives you code to embed the invitation into your website.

UnTweeps – List and unfollow Tweeps you are following who have not updated their status in 7, 30, 60 or 90 days. Useful application to clean out spam and inactive people.

VacationTweets – It’s an out-of-office for Twitter!  You can either set it up to reply to your @replies or DM’s.

ViralHeat – A paid social media monitoring/tracking and analytics application (starts at $9.99/mo for individuals and goes up to $139/mo for large corporations. Provides location based tracking, real-time monitoring and daily alerts. Looks like a great application.

We Follow – A user powered Twitter directory that categorizes people into groups, such as social media, marketing, celebrity, politics, etc.

What the Hashtag? – A wiki that tracks hashtags on Twitter. Great idea, as I so often see hashtags that I don’t know what they are being used for.

Who Should I Follow – Similar to Mr. Tweet, this program recommends people you should follow based on popularity and location. What I like about this program is that you can control those 2 features, if they are more or less important to you. The one problem I see is that it recommends people I’m already following.

Visible Tweets – A great application for events, to display the tweets relevant to that event based on a hashtag or a search. You can choose to display the tweets in letter by letter, tag cloud, or rotation.

YackTrack – I think this is a tracking/monitoring application, but there’s really no good explanation on their site, so I have no idea!

Applications no longer in service – TweetVolume

Even more applications – Here are even more applications that I haven’t detailed above, or looked into: BeTwittered, TweepML, TweetMyBlog, Tweetwhatyoueat, Twtpwr

Mobile applications not for iPhone – I use Twitter on an iPhone, but I thought I’d list a few of the applications I’ve heard of for non-iPhone mobile phones: Blackbird (and more to come… suggestions?)

Security note – I am not claiming any responsibility for the security of these programs. Please do your own due diligence to be sure you’re comfortable, especially when providing your Twitter password.

Anything to add or change? Please leave a comment below!

When you spend the time to write a blog post, you obviously want to find people who will be interested in reading it. I have a list I go through every time I write a new blog post to syndicate the content. Here’s what I do:

1. Post it on Twitter 3 times over the next 24 hours, at different times of the day

2. Post on Ping-o-matic (updates search engines that you updated your content)

3. Change status updates with a link to the post:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn (this also adds an update to the weekly update emails people receive)
• Utterli
• FriendFeed

4. Post on Digg (for some posts… it’s frowned upon to do it for every post)

5. Automatic updates:

• Regular RSS feeds using Google Feedburner
  
• Facebook RSS feeds (add the program Simply RSS to your profile and fan page)

What do you think? What else do you do to get the word out about your blog posts?

A bestselling author of thrillers contacted me today about working with him on social media to launch his book series. Exciting!  I thought I’d put together a few ideas before talking to him, recognizing the limitation that I don’t know too much about his current reader base.  Ari Herzog‘s advice to me was to stay high level, and I agree, but I would also like to have some specific ideas going into the meeting.  Here are a few ideas I have, and I would love to hear if you have any more!

• Start a blog about the process of writing the books
  • Also incorporate the writing tips that are currently in the email newsletter
  • Comment on other blogs talking about the same genre of books, the author and the current books
• Start a Facebook fan page
  • Find fans by posting information to other groups and fan pages
  • Run a raffle every couple of weeks for a free book
  • Give a discount to fans
• Record 10 minute sections of the books and make into short recordings to be posted on YouTube and his website
  • Post links on Twitter
  • Email to current mailing list
  • Post on Facebook fan page
• Be active on Twitter, and talk about the build up the launch
  • Find book enthusiasts and communicate with them
• Add a rating system to the current website where readers can share their opinions
• Start a community based around the book genre for readers to talk about the genre and his books
  • need an opportunity for open Q&A with the author
  • also participate in existing book communities
• Email to current mailing list, including dates of book signings
• Start a LinkedIn profile and group to post status updates to and network

Any other ideas come to the top of your head? Please share them below! Don’t worry, I will NOT take credit for them!

Most people know that the best way to find a job is through networking. You can go to networking meetings, tap into your own personal network, or ask friends who they know.  With the Internet buzzing with social media, there are similarly many ways to use social media in order to network, and eventually find a job.  According to an article in DMNews, Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research agrees that social networks allow all parties involved to better search for and reach their target: “Instead of having a broad, over-arching resume, these tools let people connect over detailed experiences…”

I decided to write down my thoughts on the topic.  I also had an opportunity to talk to Warren Sukernek (@warrenss) who found his job at Radian6 through Twitter!  He gave me lots of great advice in this area, so I’ve incorporated his thoughts below.

1. LinkedIn

If you’re not already on LinkedIn, you definitely need to be.  Basically, it’s a site that allows you to connect to people you know.  It also allows you to see profiles of anyone else on LinkedIn, and gives you ways to connect to them.  There are a few ways you can use LinkedIn in a job search:

• Company search – One of the best ways to use LinkedIn is if you have a very specific company you are interested in.  You search on that company, and hopefully find people who are connected to other people you know.  Then, you can ask your personal contact to connect you.  Or, if you pay $30/month, you have the opportunity to email people who you don’t have a contact in common with.
• Job postings – LinkedIn allows employers to post jobs on the site.  The jobs are usually high quality, professional jobs.
• Email – When I was first laid off, I sent a large email to everyone in my LinkedIn network, letting them know of my situation, and asking for any help or people they could put me in touch with them.
• Blog Link – LinkedIn now gives you the ability to link your blog post to your profile.  So every time I post a new blog post, it updates on my profile, so anyone looking at my profile will see what I’m writing about.  It also includes the updated post in the weekly update emails that go out to your connections.
• Twitter Link – Similar to Blog Link, LinkedIn also pulls your conversations from Twitter.  So, anyone who is not on Twitter, can see what you are tweeting about.

Warren’s advice

• Recommendations – Warren suggested getting many more recommendations on my profile.  (I currently have two, and am nagging a third to write one!)  The idea is to get recommendations not necessarily for jobs, but from more casual interactions.  For example, Twitter.  Someone could write that you provide information and have insightful things to say.  Or, someone you’ve networked with, could say that they have interacted with you on a number of occasions and you were always professional.
• Status updates – Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn also has status updates.  Warren suggests that it’s a good idea to update your status, to better inform your connections what you’ve been up to.  I previously didn’t update my status often at all!  I now plan on updating it more frequently, but also updating it with a link to each new blog post.
• Headline- LinkedIn gives you a place to add a professional headline.  I didn’t realize that was really seen by anyone, so I had mine as “Consultant”.  Warren’s advice is to make the more exciting and enticing.  Mine now reads “Innovative marketer with a drive for results.”

2. Twitter

The best part of Twitter is that it allows you to connect with people you don’t know, based on common interests.  What a great way to do some networking!  I wrote about my thoughts on using Twitter for a job search tool in “How and why I use Twitter – Part 2“, so I’ll repeat a bit of that, and add some more.

• Basic networking – I am now much more connected to people who are involved in areas I’m interested in.  Today I heard about jobs available at two companies.  I tweeted two people I met on Twitter, and in minutes I had some information about the jobs.
• Job postings – I am connected to a few people who know about jobs that I would not have otherwise known, i.e. @socialmediajob or other recruiters
• Connecting – When someone follows me or I follow them, I read their bio thoroughly.  If it looks like they work somewhere I might be interested in, or if I think they might be someone who could connect me to others, I get in touch with them.  A few have said no or not responded at all, but for the most part, everyone is very open to meeting or talking.
  • Sidebar story… I have been interested in Communispace for a while now.  I signed up to go to a Marketing event at Harvard Business School, and was excited to see that Diane Hessan, the CEO and founder, was going to be on the panel.  Coincidentally, a few days after I registered for the event, Diane started following me on Twitter.  I sent her a private message (DM) saying I was looking forward to meeting her.  She responded quickly, and it was clear that she had looked at my website and had a good sense of my experience.  She said she was looking forward to meeting, and I should bring my resume for her at the panel.  When I did meet her, it didn’t seem like we were meeting for the first time… it just opened up the lines of communication that much more.
• Companies – My new favorite Twitter tool is Twellow (on my list of programs I “use regularly“), which actually searches people’s bios and URLs on their bios.  It’s amazing!  For example, I did a quick search on Shift Communications, a company I would love to work for.  As you can see in the results, I can see that 13 people from Shift are on Twitter.

Warren’s advice

• What’s going on – Warren suggests I be more proactive in talking about what’s going on in regards to my job search.  So, mentioning things more often about interviews I have had, or people I have met with.  This keeps it fresh in people’s heads that I am looking for a job.
• Reaching out – Warren also suggests just reaching out to people I want to network with and saying something like “Hi – I’m looking to break into social media.  Is there anyone you can think of to refer me to?”
• Twitter name – Warren opinion is that your Twitter name should be your name, as it will help in your search engine results.  For example, bostonmarketer (my Twitter name) will not help get my name ranked higher.  And, people aren’t going to search on bostonmarketer, they will be searching on my name. (I’m not sure I’m ready to take Warren’s advice on that one!)

3. Facebook

I use Facebook primarily for connecting with friends or people I know and reconnecting with people in my past.  But, it can also be an effective networking tool.

• Notes – While I do know everyone I’m friends with on Facebook, I don’t necessarily know or remember where each person works.  And, I definitely don’t know where each of their friends work.  So, when I first was laid off, I posted a “note” on Facebook, explaining the situation, and what I was looking for.  A note tends to stay on people’s screens longer than a status update, and you can write much more.
• Status update – I do frequently post status updates relating to my job search, to keep it top of mind that I’m still looking for a job.  I’ll say things like “I had a great interview this morning… keep your fingers crossed!” or “I have a networking meeting later today with a company I’m really interested in!”.  I also write a status update with a link when I write a new blog post.

Warren’s advice

• Notes for blog posts – Create a “note” for each blog post.  As I mentioned above, notes stay on people’s screen’s longer.  Also, I think that some people may be more likely to read it if the text is right there on the screen rather than having to click through to the blog.  Also, if they comment on it on Facebook, it becomes even more viral.
• Tag your friends – If you write a blog post that includes a reference to a friend on Facebook, tag them in the note.  That way, their friends will be alerted to your post, and your message will spread more quickly.
  

4. Blog

I think a blog is a critical piece to getting a job in today’s world.  A blog allows you to do a number of things:

• Showcase your talents to potential employers – they see how you write, see what’s important to you, see who you are personally and even see examples of your work.  All that, before they even meet you.  It helps make you a real person versus a piece of paper resume.
• Comment on other blogs – This gets your name out there even more, and if you write something interesting, it may catch the eye of a potential employer.
  
• Blog about opportunities you want – As I mentioned in “Networking,Chris Brogan and websites, oh my!”, Chris Brogan suggests blogging on the types of jobs you want. For example, if I want a job at a specific nonprofit doing marketing, I can blog about ideas I have for them.  That was the inspiration behind my post on the restaurant group, and it was great to be able to talk about during my interview with the restaurant.

Warren’s advice

• Talk more personally about the different aspects of your job search

5. Online Communities

I hadn’t done anything with online communities, so it’s only Warren’s advice on this one!

Warren’s advice

• Look for small online communities in my areas of interest.  For example, The Society for Word of Mouth or Marketing 2.0 (website address?).  You can post your blog on those sites, pose questions, answer questions or start a discussion, and bring in my blog post.

Overall, I believe that social networking is the way to go in today’s digital world, particularly with the current economic situation.  In Warren’s words, “You need to do an integrated online marketing campaign to find Rachel Levy a job because the regular s–t doesn’t work anymore!”

Update: Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research has also written about this topic in “What you Need to Be Thinking About Regarding Social Media and Layoffs“… great post!

What do you think?  How are you using social media in your job search?  How do you see job candidates using it?