Photography: Feral Indeed!

Burglars lost a valuable resource recently. They didn’t mislay their crowbars and they can still get hold of bags marked “swag” if they really want to, but PleaseRobMe.com is no longer listing tweets with location data. The shopping list for home-raiders is now empty.

PleaseRobMe.com was never meant to help burglars, of course. The site, which simply reposted tweets whose writers had  indicated they weren’t at home, was created to alert people to the dangers of sharing too much information on social media sites – information such as the fact that they’re enjoying a two-week vacation in Cancun, the house is empty, and there’s a giant pile of cash in the unlocked office drawer.

It’s a risk that’s easy to understand. Location-based services such as Foursquare, Facebook’s Places, and Twitter’s “Add your location” feature should all be vital boons for criminals. There’s little point in leaving the lights on when you go to the cinema or asking a friend to pop around and empty the mailbox when you’re on vacation if you’re also going to announce to the entire world that you’re not at home. It’s really not hard for any criminal capable of opening a Facebook account or surfing to Twitter to discover who’s out and about in their area and whose homes are safe to rob.

And it might have happened. The media is full of reports about people who posted their location information on Twitter or on Facebook and came home to a jimmied front  door and a house emptied of valuables. Geo-location for posts and careless tweeting have made targeting so simple that it’s no surprise that potential victims are worried.

Don’t Tell People Where You Are

The simplest solution, of course, is never to announce where you are on a social media site — unless you’re at home watching the television with your guard dog and a large shotgun. Turn off the geo-location features, steer clear of Foursquare (because really, who wants to be the mayor of a café?) , and only tell people what you’re thinking or doing, not where you’re thinking or doing it.

In practice, that’s harder than it sounds. If you’re enjoying a great meal and want to post a picture of it, there’s a good chance that you’re not at home. If you want to share your vacation experience before your return flight, you’re also telling burglars that it will be a while before anyone notices the break-in. While you could simply sit on your hands and wait until you’re home before making your announcements, that’s not going to be an option for hard-core social media addicts, the types with a gazillion friends and the need to tell everyone what they’re doing all the time. Nor will it be possible for Twitter users attending conferences and hoping to join the online discussions taking place about the content.

And it’s something that a surprisingly large number of people do. According to a survey by insurance firm Legal & General, almost 40 percent of Facebook and Twitter users share vacation plans online.

On Facebook though that may be less of a problem. Although with more than 500 million members, Facebook is the largest social media site on the Web, it’s also a closed system. Work out how to use the privacy settings and you can be sure that your post is only seen by people you trust. Even if someone comments on your post, it should still only be viewable by friends and family. If you know your friends mix in the same circles as the criminal classes, then you might want to be cautious, but otherwise there should be little risk in telling your nearest and dearest that you’re heading away for a few days.

It’s a bigger issue on Twitter whose posts are open to anyone who wants to read them. According to Legal & General, 92 percent of Twitter’s users accept follows without checking who wants to follow them. Only 13 percent of potential burglary victims on Facebook do the same thing.

Thieves Can’t Burgle a Facebook Page

While never making a post that suggests you’re not at home may be the safest advice then, more useful rules to live by would include only approving as friends people you know and want to be in contact with, and being more cautious among the strangers on Twitter than you are among the friends on Facebook.

And even then, there may be little to worry about. It’s one thing for a burglar to see that someone isn’t at home, it’s another to discover where that home might be. With a little research, that information may not be impossible to discover but most burglars are opportunists rather than dedicated professionals. They’re unlikely to plough through directories to dig out an address of someone on Twitter in the hope that they’re within burgling distance when they can walk around their own neighborhood looking out for darkened windows and cheap locks. There’s no evidence that homes robbed after their owners posted their absence on Facebook or Twitter were targeted because of their announcements. Of 50 homes attacked by one gang of thieves, only one turned to be linked, loosely, to Facebook.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful. Even when the odds are small, in a community of 500 million people, anything can happen. But it does mean you shouldn’t worry too much.

And the good news is that while criminals could find social media useful, there’s no doubt that law enforcement has found it even more useful. Police forces around the world are using social media to make announcements, distribute wanted posters, track gangs, and more. One burglar was even arrested after stopping, mid-raid, to post an update on his victim’s computer. Because he didn’t bother to log out, police were able to trace him.

Social media does offer all sorts of privacy challenges. Information that we used to keep to ourselves, or which was only available to a small number of people, is now posted online for the world to see. It pays to be cautious about who you talk to and what you say on a social media site. But don’t let fear of strangers ruin your fun.

It’s been said that each person is separated from every other person by only six degrees (or five introductions). This is a theory that Microsoft has essentially shown to be true – at least amongst online users – by studying the relationships of 180 million people around the world, through 30 billion electronic messages. This concept is referred to as Six Degrees of Separation (which has a Hollywood variation known as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon).

We Are All Connected

What this shows is that humans are in fact social creatures and far more connected than we might sometimes realize. This is valuable for entrepreneurs because it suggests that it’s relatively easily to build a network of colleagues, clients and customers.

In the past, network building has been done in person, followed by telegrams and postal mail, then phone/ pager/ voice mail, then email and now through a variety of online “social media” options.

These electronic options are all variations of “word of mouth” – an ancient form of communication. Word of mouth has often been said to be one of the fastest means of communication in the world, and technology has made it more so. It can also be immensely valuable when it comes to entrepreneuring and business in general. Online social media is simply the newest way to network.

What is Social Media?

When it comes to the online world, we might even be much closer to each other than six degrees – possibly just three degrees apart. Technology does make it easy to connect with new people. Social media makes it even easier to connect, since that’s the whole purpose – making new online friends.

What is social media? It’s a general term for a number of different online tools that allow people to promote themselves or web content, or connect with other people. There are a number of different types of social media. Here are a few types:

1. Social voting + bookmarking websites. These are used to promote online articles and other content.
2. Social networks. Some examples are LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace, which each offer multiple ways to network.
3. Microblogging. While not strictly a social media tool, at the least with Twitter, it has become a way of building a network of friends and “followers,” building personal and brand recognition, and general promotion. Other similar tools include Plurk and Hictu.

Why Use Social Media?

While social media use seems to be growing (judging even just by the number of people joining Twitter, and the number of clones popping up), it’s obvious that many people who work regularly online are still wondering if social media is something they want to get involved in. Or more to the point, is it worth the time?

In short, the answer is “yes.” Yes, if you want to build working relationships online. Depending on the type of service you use, social media gives you a number of benefits that are valuable for entrepreneurs (and all kinds of other web workers):

1. Helps you find like minds and to network. If you’re shy by nature, social media makes it much easier to network.
2. Opportunity to share information, or to find it.
3. Quick-polling outlet. Have a question and want some opinions? Twitter can be an ideal way to get some feedback. However, polling is more effective if you have a large following. (My own experience is that people on Plurk and Facebook are far more responsive.)
4. Hiring and job-seeking channel. Share details of working that you’re offering, or watch for opportunities from your network.
5. Find a life partner. Yes, this can and does happen. When you’re so busy running your business that you don’t have much time to go out and meet new people in real life, it’s often far easier to connect online. If something develops, you can take it from there the normal way.

If you’re a creative entrepreneur (i.e., such as a musician, actor, artist, writer/ novelist), you can utilize social media. Here is an indepth article about how you can use Twitter, for building your entrepreneurial profile. Also check out Geekpreneur’s ebook for promoting yourself with Twitter.

Note that if you use more than one social media tool, explore the options for integrating them. For example, you can tweet a message on Twitter, then use a third-party service to have that message update on your Facebook Wall, your blog, and elsewhere. This is ideal if you have different people in different social networks but want to communicate to all of them.

Integrating Social Media Into Your Work Schedule

One of the common complaints about having to use social media is that it can take up a significant part of your day. That is, if you let it. Everyone has their own threshhold for how many people they can “follow” without feeling overwhelmed by the digital noise that results. There are some people who follow thousands of other people and manage just fine. A few use online tools to filter out just what they want.

The fact is, there’s far more value in social media tools when you follow more people. If you’re concerned about how doing so will affect your schedule, read Chris Garrett’s post on social media network effects.

I have a few simple rules, which vary depending on the social network:

1. Choose a select few social media sites. There’s not enough time in the day for regularly using more than a few sites. While I might have accounts on over a dozen, I only use a few – each for its own purpose, and depending on what my network is using.
2. Try to have a fixed schedule. I check certain services more often than others, simply because of where my currently active network is. I’ve gone from Twitter to Plurk to Twitter to Facebook.
3. Keep building. My network is always growing, though it’s faster on some services than others. On Facebook, I generally only add people I have somehow interacted with in the past, or have been introduced to, or recommended to. On Twitter and Plurk, I follow strangers more readily because the infrastructure allows it.
4. Ask for referrals. If you don’t know someone but someone else you know does, ask the latter for a referral. It’s done offline, so why not online?
5. Add back. If you add me to your network and you are not a spammer, you’ll be added back. (However, if you’re on Twitter, Plurk or some other microblogging site and have no messages posted, I might wait a bit before adding you.) My networks are not enormous but they are big enough on some services that I cannot always “add” back right away. I usually spend a few minutes at the end of each week to do “reciprocal” adds (i.e., add back).

Social Media Mistakes to Avoid

There are number of ways that can social media can be used incorrectly. Interactive Insight Group compiled a list of links to articles that discuss serious social media mistakes.

Social media might help you to promote yourself, but just remember that the benefits come from sharing. The fact that reciprocal behavior is necessary is easy to forget, but should not be forgotten.

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” James Chartrand

James from MenwithPens summed Twitter really good. It’s a service that allows users to stay connected with current friends and get connected to more like minded people. As we know, Twitter has picked up the pace in many facets when it comes to our online life. Bloggers have made a gradual move towards microblogging and some people have eliminated their RSS feed readers completely, and embraced Twitter as their new link generator to keep up with current news and posts.

If you have read my previous article on Twitter, you know that I am a ” Twitteroholic”. I love it. But just cause something is so powerful and so widely spread doesn’t mean it can take over everything. And the same goes true when it comes to Twitter replacing RSS feed readers as well. Some people have ruled out the use of feed readers to keep track of their favorite blogs and some still can’t seem to find a way to how Twitter can replace feed readers. In this post let’s analyze some Pros and Cons side by side on using Twitter as a feed reader.

I had sent out a “ tweet “ on Twitter asking “Can Twitter Replace RSS Feed reader?“

Here are some answers from some Twitter die hard fans:

“I don’t believe that Twitter can replace an RSS reader.” – Thomas, TwisterMc

“Someday, maybe. I still use my feed reader, mainly because there are lots of blogs in my reader that don’t tweet (yet.)” – Bob Younce, Writing Journey

“Twitter provides immediacy from my “inner” social network. Someone tweets a link and I read it.” – Karen D. Swim, Words For Hire

“No because many do not tweet their blog posts. I find feed reader still necessary–but not used as often.” – Michael Martin, Remarkablogger

“Twitter can never replace my feed reader.“ Jon C. Phillips, Freelance Folder

Like I said these are the answers from some of the most active users on Twitter. And although Twitter has helped them become more active in networking, microblogging and marketing among many other things, it seems like feed reader is still their choice when it comes to catching up on news and other information.

Twitter certainly has made life simple in many ways. When it comes to networking and marketing I think Twitter is the best web service out there. But when it comes to replacing a feed reader, I am not sure. May be someday. As for now, Twitter isn’t the way to catch up on links or information, that’s for sure.

Before I end this post I would like to add one more advantage that a feed reader has over Twitter,

Say you launch a new site, and you announce it on your current blog and on Twitter, I’m 100% sure you’ll get more visitors to your new site from the announcement via the feed reader than from Twitter. Of course this depends on your subscriber number. But if you aren’t a popular blogger already or somebody influential, then it’s pretty hard to get noticed on Twitter as well.

Personally, I love the fact that in a feed reader I can organize the feeds I have subscribed to the way I want. I can get to them anytime of day without having to worry about missing an important article or news. At the end of the day, I would rather open a my feed readers to fill myself up with information rather than my Twitter account. What about you? Please share your thoughts and opinion.

Our free Twitter Ebook is now available for download.

For new Twitter users and non-Twitter users, this ebook should be shared by the experienced Twitter users.

So download our Twitter Ebook and pass it around.

[tags] twitter ebook [/tags]

Social Media sites have been rising in popularity day after day. The underlying reason behind this popularity and increased user base is simply the power of networking and self promotion. If you have been in the social media scene for a while, you must have noticed the decline both in terms of quality and networking possibilities.

Media always seems to drive everything around us and the same is true with social media sites when it comes to the web world. As in real world media, the social media sites rarely send quality our way and most of the time we are just bombarded with nonsense that we don’t really want to know about or hear of. Anyways, in this post let’s analyze social media – the past and the present, why it has changed and who is gaming who in this cycle?

The Reason Social Media Is There

“Social Media sites exist because people want to have places where they can be heard. Many of us live in situations where we must quietly comply with the decisions of a faceless few without straying from imposed rules and regulations. Social Media sites allow us to present our creative works to an audience, discuss a multitude of topics, and learn from each other in a safe, rewarding environment.” – Mark Dykeman

There are hundreds of reason to join and actively participate on a social media site. However, in this post we will talk about some core reasons as to why we should be a part of it and why we should become social.

• Networking: One of the core reasons for the existence and popularity of social media is obviously networking. The possibilities of making influential contacts and being a part of an ever growing network is certainly undeniable. Losing out on this opportunity will certainly hurt your business and eventually your network will stop growing, hence leaving you in a spot where you can’t really move any further. Networking is the core message and reason for joining and participating in social media sites.

• Collaborative Effort: The other core reason that I personally find makes social media site the love of all web users is the collaborative effort. Sites such as DIGG, StumbleUpon, Reddit are some of the sites that take user submissions under consideration to decide whether or not it should be popularized. This takes collaborative effort. One user chooses to submit or discover something that they are passionate about and then shares it with their friends and all act as a team, collaborate their efforts to get it viewable by as many as possible ( this has changed in recent years and we will talk more about this as we get more into the post ).

• Community Building: If you live in a society, it is your responsibility to give something back, to build the community you live within. And a social media site you are part of is no different. The word “ SOCIAL “ in social media itself clearly defines the fact that it is a society and to make it worthwhile everybody needs to chip in their fair share of expertise and contribution.

The Recent Changes and Their Impact

“I think the recent algorithm change is doing more harm than good. In fact from the looks of it, it’s doing only harm. If you look at the numbers here. You will see that the popularity of the stories on the home page has decreased drastically. I don’t understand why Digg would want to decrease engagement on their site.” – Msaleem”

If you are an active social media user, I am sure you are aware of the recent DIGG algorithm change. It’s probably one of the most talked about things on the web lately when it comes to social media. The other site that seems to be going towards the same route is StumbleUpon, although not as heavily involved in changing its internal working as DIGG. This post isn’t about targeting digg or StumbleUpon by any means, it is just to show how these sites which are seen as the mother of all Social Media sites have taken the steps that might actually hurt the community within and their very own good.

• Impact on Networking: Networking is all about give and take. You give a little and you get a little. It’s the norm when it comes to networking that if you want to get something you need to give something. With the recent changes made by social media sites, this has become impossible. Most users join these sites to gain popularity as a user or to bring in popularity and expose their services, blogs or businesses. It impacts networking because at one point in time, the favors are all done and we all want to do favors and earn them back as well – as long as we can. Might sound wrong but the essence of networking is to get by giving. With recent changes this has become impossible. An influential contact is only influential for so long and once the effect is gone the user is gone as well. Although it’s wrong to take this networking approach, most people do. If they can’t get anything from anyone, they tend to leave that networking circle. Why does this matter if they are not able to get anything out of it? Because most people tend to ignore the future and look at the present. This certainly hampers their future both in social media participation and in allowing themselves to be a part of a powerful networking circle.

• Discouraging Collaborative Efforts: Since DIGG is the most talked about social media site, let’s include them as an example. With the recent change in DIGG’s algorithm it has become impossible to hit the front page. Nothing wrong with that. But, what if the post certainly deserves some attention for the content or the news for that matter? Before we could forward the submission to our friends and act as a team collaboratively to promote a story, which is now impossible. Users are penalized for having friends. This is a wrong step towards community building as the host of the community is taking steps to knock the collaborative effort down, or already has for that matter. And lately, with all the hype about Digg’s recent algorithm change it only seems to be hurting the entire community.

“Several months ago, many people reached the front page with around 70 diggs. Now some users need 350. As it becomes harder to reach the front page, people can no longer depend on their submission to grow organically. Therefore, some users are becoming more aggressive in their approach and are becoming increasingly competitive.” – Reem Abeidoh

The Reason For The Change

“ As these companies grow so do their staff. With that comes a stronger and more intelligent programming crew who are able to plug more holes easily. The community must also improve along with it and we are.” – MikeOnTv

Now that we have talked and analyzed how these changes can effect the overall community within a site, let’s talk why these changes were implemented. Let’s take for example, a 2 year old child doesn’t listen to his mom. Finally, there has to be a way to punish the child for being stubborn and yes it’s a step that needs to be taken. So what can a mom do to make sure that her child behaves and starts listening to her? Two choices : spank him or show him why it’s inappropriate. Which would you chose? I hope you answered the second.

As you can see from the example above, there is a way to handle things when things go a little awry. The same thing happened in case of Digg and Stumble Upon and other social media sites. Instead of building a community and acting as a team, the users acted on their sole benefits and nobody else’s and the change was needed and expected but not to this extent. But still the change was needed, no question about that. Some of the reasons that brought about this change.

• Spamming For Traffic: This is by far the biggest reason most social media sites have turned against their users when it comes to setting rules. More and more users joining these sites are using it for their sole benefit and nobody else. Forty thumbs up packed with a couple review can do wonders in terms of traffic from Stumble Upon and a DIGG frontpage could easily send you thousands of visitors in one day. But the purpose of these sites and the foundation of these sites aren’t built upon benefiting you, it’s built upon benefiting the entire community. I myself agree the change was needed but not to this extent. The users need to be talked to, not have their networking and collaborative efforts and rights taken away. If you build a community with a certain thing in mind it needs to rise and lead in a particular path, not deter from the core value.

• Low Quality Content: The other reason these changes were implemented is simply because of the poor quality that are being bombarded at users by other users. As stated above, it’s simply due to putting one’s benefit before others. The change was needed but I will stress once again, it wasn’t needed to this extreme.

• The Game: Social Media lately has become an addiction for the traffic gamblers. “Let’s try it on DIGG, if we can make it, imagine the traffic ,” this is something not very uncommon when it comes to bloggers and webmasters. Social Media is being gamed and the changes are hurting not just the sites but the community itself. It’s being gamed by few and the entire community is paying the price for it.

Who is Gaming Who?

“ I am not sure what is considered gaming these days. Cultivating a pool of friends on a given social media site is kind of the point, so I definitely wouldn’t consider interacting with a like minded community and sharing your submissions amongst each other gaming. I think the real question here is, beyond a single user creating multiple accounts to falsely inflate his voting average, what would be considered gaming? ” – Decepticrat

If this post gets some kind of exposure I am sure this will bring some controversy as posts on social media always does. It wasn’t written for that purpose, the only purpose this post was written to find an answer on who is gaming who. Who is benefiting from all these changes? Me and you as a user aren’t benefiting and the social media sites are certainly not gaining positive reaction either.

Are the users gaming the social media for their own good? Or is social media sites gaming us by making us work harder, spend more time and collaborate and work together more to get to nowhere? Who is being gamed? A question that is left unanswered…Looking forward to your views and may be an answer that might make me think otherwise. As of now, Social Media and the community that lies within are sinking and they are sinking fast.

It’s your turn to talk. How do you think Social Media has changed in recent years? Who do you think is benefiting from all these changes? Share your views, your concerns and opinion. Let’s talk!

Note: Digg is holding a town hall meeting this Monday, May 12th. Details can be found here

For any entrepreneur there’s only one thing worse than a blank page. Yes, it’s even worse than a blank bank account (that can always be fixed).

Nothing is more frightening than a blank mind.

Run out of ideas, whether it’s for a blog post, a killer app, or a company that’s going to let you buy a small Caribbean island one day, and you’re dead in the water. Without a plan of your own, you’re back to working for The Man and living off someone else’s dream — while they take the bulk of the cash.

Thinking up profitable new ideas has always been tough. If it weren’t, everyone would be doing it. But it has now become a lot easier… thanks to Twitter.

That might sound strange. It’s bizarre enough that a system that lets people send messages of just 140 characters would be interesting and addictive. But inspiring too?

And yet it is, and in a number of different ways.

Talk Up an Idea
Perhaps the easiest way to use Twitter to generate ideas is just to get involved in the conversations. While Twitter might be best known as a place to send messages, what makes the site really effective is the messages that come back — its power as a virtual watercooler.

Unlike the traditional corporate talking space though, the chatting on Twitter is often to the point and productive, rather than gossipy and wasteful. It makes you think rather than gives you a break from thinking for money.

This snippet, for example, came from the updates posted by Bill Thompson, a technology journalist who reports for the BBC, and was sparked by aaroscape asking whether a blog is a good model for building a website:

For an entrepreneur with a head for programming, an exchange like that might just spark plans to create the perfect content management system. For a tech-minded blogger, it could inspire a post about the best model for building a website.

For everyone on Twitter, it suggests that there are golden exchanges floating around between the notifications of missed deadlines and the descriptions of cheese sandwiches for lunch.

Ask for Help
But you don’t even have to go looking for inspiring ideas on Twitter. You can also ask the ideas to come to you. This is a strategy that Darren Rowse, the professional blogger behind ProBlogger.net, used once. He simply asked his followers to submit any questions that they’d like and promised to answer a selection of them within three minutes each. He called it “speed posting.”

That gave his followers the opportunity to get the benefits of his knowledge. It gave Darren’s site a lively discussion with plenty of good content that he didn’t have to write.

And it also give him a large stack of ideas that he could mine for future blog posts if he wanted to.

For Darren, that’s a relatively simple strategy. He has over 5,000 followers and is known for having the sort of valuable information that people who use Twitter would find helpful.

If you’re well known enough, or if people see you as an expert, inviting your followers to ask questions in this way can certainly be a good strategy. But just asking your own questions works too.

If you’re a blogger, at the beginning of each month, ask your followers what topics they’d like to see discussed over the following weeks. If you’re a programmer, ask them what features of WordPress, Joomla or anything else they’d like to see improved.

Obviously, you don’t have write about any of the topics you receive or build anything that’s on anyone’s wish list if you don’t want to. But the results should certainly get you thinking.

Become a Stalker
Conversations between Twitterers and their followers are certainly valuable. That’s true whether you’re involved in the chats or just reading someone else’s. But Twitter was really built for stalkers — the sort of people who enjoy finding out what’s happening in the lives of strangers who vaguely interest them.

Fortunately, on Twitter, those strangers don’t mind, so feel free to stalk away.

But choose who you stalk follow carefully. There all sorts of interesting and important people on Twitter, including apparently Sun’s CEO. When they tweet there’s a good chance that much of what they say will get your mind whirring. At the very least, it could be news for a blogger to post about.

Tracking down really famous people on Twitter though is difficult, and even if you can find them, there’s no way of knowing whether you’re following the tweets of the real Steve Jobs or just another faker.

One alternative then is not to look for a person but a profession. Include a good smattering of people who work in fields related to yours in your follow list and you’ll be receiving opinions, news and updates from the front line. Any of those could be powerful idea-sparkers.

A really good idea can be worth a fortune. Used carefully, Twitter can be an effective way to dig more out more frequently.

It was the concept that should never have taken off. Before 2006, the notion that it would be possible to write a message that would be both meaningful and thought-provoking in just 140 characters would have sounded far-fetched. That complete strangers would be interested in reading those messages would have seemed even odder.

In fact, the idea that anyone at all would care to read an answer to the question “What are you doing now?” has always appeared downright bizarre — especially when those answers are published several times a day.

And yet, Twitter is certainly a success. It’s a success not in the same way that MySpace or Facebook are successes; it doesn’t have a billion-dollar valuation, or any revenue model at all, in fact. Nor is its popularity a result of careful hyping; the publicity has followed its popularity.

It’s a success because in addition to gathering millions of users, Twitter has managed to make the leap from being a cool toy for geeks to become an invaluable resource for anyone. Small business owners are using it to find clients and build customer loyalty. Specialists are following tweets to keep up to date on colleagues around the world. And yes, even presidential candidates are now sending messages to provide quick reactions to breaking news, to make announcements and to let followers know the latest updates from the campaign trail.

What started as a way for staff members at San Francisco firm Obvious to send each other messages has become an international phenomenon, a form of communication with an apparently universal appeal.

Hillary’s a Tweeter
Perhaps the clearest sign that Twitter has moved out of the Internet fringes to encompass people beyond the screengazers of Silicon Valley is the number of establishment figures now using the system. The British government’s communications office sends out tweets, for example, and both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are regular tweeters. Or rather their campaigns are because no one believes that the candidates themselves are sitting on their buses, wearing out their thumbs with announcements of new speech venues.

And that’s where things start to get interesting because while the uses of Twitter are very restricted — there’s no getting around that character limit — the relationship between followers and the followed varies. Tony Blair’s tweets gave the game away by referring to him in the third person, making it clear that followers were reading snippets about the then-Prime Minister, but not information from him, and Barack Obama might be best known for his eloquence but his tweets often read like the headlines of press releases that no one wants to cover. That’s probably because they come from the same communication people that write those releases rather than from the candidate himself.

Even that though doesn’t make them useless. One recent Obama tweet in response to the latest unemployment figures called for a move away from “Bush-McCain” policies. Politicos might have noticed from that tweet that the leading Democrat is already preparing for the next stage in the campaign and is attacking the Republican candidate by linking him to the unpopular incumbent. It’s also worth noting that Obama has an impressive 21,871 followers from 95 tweets, while Clinton has a paltry 2,800 followers from 100 messages.

Establishment tweeters don’t have to be as dry as Clinton and Obama though. The UK Parliament’s tweets, for example, are filled with both interesting trivia about Britain’s legislature and a real sense of personality. Unlike many establishment tweeters, they feel like they were written by a real person. It’s just a shame that the tweets came in fits and starts, that the last one was written two months ago and that little more than a dozen people followed them.

For these sorts of tweeters, the relationship between followers and the followed is always going to live up to the name of the participants. These are messages from leaders to people who want an inside peek at the thoughts of those in power — even if they only come from his or her entourage. There’s no dialogue and no way to receive answers to questions.

Creating a Virtual Water Cooler
Business owners and service providers have to take a very different approach when using Twitter for commercial purposes. Laura Fitton, a communications consultant, travels the world attending social media conferences and helping clients, all of whom, she says, she picked up on Twitter. Asked how businesses can benefit from using the site, she produced a long list that included creating a virtual water cooler, enabling feedback and mentoring, bouncing ideas around, and simplifying communications.

“Twitter can be a great vehicle for a brand extension if you are willing to produce feeds of cool, useful things,” she recommended in an interview with Global Neighborhoods. “And by useful, I mean useful to others, not to yourself. In any environment where everyone is publishing and everyone subscribes to feeds that add to their lives, the self-serving will flounder and the useful will flourish. So as brand extension, you need to work to not be rejected as a spammer.”

That’s nothing new, of course. That freebies have to be valuable is a marketing standard. What is new is the idea that a message no longer than 140 characters can be considered valuable.

Laura Fitton though has sent out much more than 140 characters. She has issued a total of more than 10,000 tweets through Twitter and notes that when a potential client contacts her, they already know who she is and how she thinks. The links she includes in her tweets also make it easy for them to follow all of the other content she has uploaded to various blogs and video sites. Tweeter for her then, has become a way of marketing her approach to potential clients as much as a form of public thinking.

So Twitter has evolved into a way for the powerful — and wannabe powerfuls — to communicate to the masses. It’s also become a way for businesses to network, to build brands and to create communities. Perhaps one of its most valuable uses though is a combination of the two.

Twitter Takes you There
Writing on the BBC’s website, technology journalist Bill Thompson described how following tweets from audience members allowed him to feel that he was in the room at this year’s SXSW interactive when Mark Zuckerberg took a heckling for Beacon.

“[T]he sense of presence that can be achieved is remarkable, especially when you’re sitting at your computer working, connected to the internet and with a Twitter client running on your computer so that tweets appear as they are posted,” he enthused. “It’s rather like reading a novel, where you stop seeing the words on paper and find yourself immersed in a world created for you by the author.”

It’s that ability to draw followers into a tweeter’s private space that has proved so powerful. It lets anyone feel that they’re sitting alongside any other tweeter in any part of the world. It allows buyers to trust the people they’re considering buying from. And it enables governments and politicians to make announcements without necessarily causing followers to feel that they’re being talked at rather than talked to.

Whether Twitter has become mainstream then, no longer seems to be an issue — it is and in all sorts of different ways. A much bigger question is whether it can stay mainstream without a revenue stream.

It’s a problem that just about every rising entrepreneur has to face. You know that if you could just get your name out there, the public would recognize the genius of your idea and the quality of your talent, and line up to buy your products or hire your services.

It’s just a problem of communication.

And the solution usually involves spending giant bags of money on promotion and advertising.

If you happen to have giant bags of money — or if you know an investor who does — it’s an option that has the advantage of being tried and tested. If your capital consists of the change left over from last week’s groceries though, all you can do is look enviously on as better-funded competitors grow fast and dominate the market, leaving you to pick up the remains.

The Internet has changed that dynamic a little. Online advertising lets even small businesses set their own marketing budget and reach potential buyers around the world. It might not be as powerful as billboards on the 101 and a 30-second spot during the Superbowl but it can be enough to help a small business grow bigger at a pace it can handle.

Some Internet Viruses are Good
Even that costs money though and sometimes you want to develop faster than your funds should allow. Fortunately, the Web has shown that it has another solution: viral marketing that costs little more than time to prepare but which can have an effect to rival even a McDonalds-sized marketing budget.

It’s a solution that requires creativity and coolness — something that’s almost impossible to manufacture. But it also requires dedication and an awareness of how different online networks function.

One woman who’s shown herself to be a master of viral marketing — even if that wasn’t her intention — is Kina Grannis. A 22-year old social sciences graduate, Kina has been playing music for six years, performing for five, and presumably dreaming of hitting the big time for a lot longer.

A talent competition with a first prize that included a chance to sing at the Superbowl presented a giant opportunity to achieve that dream. The winner was selected by online voting which meant that the competition became as much a test of networking skills as musical talent.

Kina’s approach used the strengths of each of the main social networking sites. She started with a song about Digg, a service that she and her sisters — who provided back-up vocals — were familiar with.

“My sisters and a friend and myself (all of us who spend a good amount of time on Digg.com) were discussing the quirks of the Digg community, and the song just kind of came together. I came up with the melody in about a minute and recorded it after singing it through a few times” Kina told us by email. “I just see Digg as this extremely entertaining and powerful social tool.”

Not surprisingly, the tribute to Diggers hit the home page, leading to a massive spike in views and plenty of extra votes in the competition.

Playing to each Network’s Strength
But Kina didn’t stop there. The bookmarking site had created awareness but the voting was taking place on MySpace, and Kina also saw that Facebook and YouTube had plenty to contribute to her promotional work too.

“I use Facebook for event promotion and posting videos, but I find it harder to use as a primary site for my media stuff,” she explained. “[It’s] definitely great for getting in touch with people, but YouTube is clearly the place for videos in my mind, as is MySpace for music, because people have just come to expect that.”

At the same time, Kina was also blogging (and answering readers’ comments), running her own website and, of course, pushing directly for votes on a site set up to promote her competition entry.

Nor did the marketing stop when she logged off. Kina also did promotional shows at schools and shopping malls. She put up fliers and networked through alumni groups. And she reached out to other bloggers for their support and tried to bring people to look at her daily video posts.

The result was that Kina won. She sang during the Superbowl, has signed a recording contract with Interscope, and is expecting to release an album or EP within the next six months or so.

Kina says that her success could not have happened without Digg, but there’s clearly more to it than that. She doesn’t restrict herself to one promotional tool and makes the most of each network’s strength, placing her music on MySpace, her videos on YouTube and placing performance notices on Facebook. She uses her blog to keep close to her fans and doesn’t neglect offline marketing. Despite the effort of doing all that while also singing and recording, she’s persistent and professional — all of which are good models for any entrepreneur to follow.

And she sings pretty well too.

[tags] kina grannis [/tags]