The Top 25 Social Networking Giants

Do You Know Who They Are? ...& Are You Using Them To Your Advantage?

Basically, are you marketing the right way in today's virtual world?

Many of you may have noticed the title of this blog has changed. This decision has come after months of realizing the need to be more relevant if I want to truly be helpful to those of you who have followed me in the past. I enjoy all the fun videos and music clips, those will continue after all that is the beauty of a blog, you can make it what ever your personality dictates.

However, many business people I work with, who have been extremely successful in the recent past, marketing the old ways, (...the day of information!) are now completely lost in this new virtual fever fast paced world of social networking, (...the day of recommendation!) I have included myself here (to a degree) as I am continuing to learn every day just like you.

If this is you, I am now authoring some great articles to help you. The post-information will include examples, advice and tips from some of the greats in the social media networking industry. I am very excited to share this helpful information with you. You should subscribe to this blogs RSS feed ... which we will cover... or just bookmark this page. Check in often and let me know your question and curiosities! If there is a relevant topic you feel I should research and teach, drop me a line and perhaps it will be covered in due time.

I am preparing these articles right now to post very soon. I will not throw them all at you at once. We will settle in on one method at a time to make sure you completely understand that media or application process. You will be able to determine for yourself, as the weeks go by, which media or application is best for your particular online needs.

Now, to decide if this "study in social networking methods" is right for you, I'm going to ask you a few questions. Below are a few present day tools your competitors are using in the market place online right now to out sell, out perform and out "leads" you, (That is if you've not yet committed to a permanent place of online real estate for yourself and also if you've not established a visible, accessible & aggressive presence for yourself or your company.)

Just One Question: ...out of 25 future questions to ask yourself:

• Are you using any of the below basic tools to: *market your website, *develop a massive lead database, *promote your products instantly, *handle your customers with personal flair, *or manage your online presence?
  

• BemiCall Twitter Facebook My Space Skype LinkedIn Class Reunion Sites PayPal Delicious Squidoo Utterli Zazzle SitePal Cafe Press Pay Per Clicks Adsense Blip.FM Blog Radio Digg Rapsody YouTube Last FM Bebo Flickr Hi5
  

• Humm, ...Your Answer? How did you score?

ENJOY: Radio Hits from 1972

(Elvis Presley performs at Madison Square Garden in this June 1972 photo provided by George Kalinsky.)

FREE MUSIC ON RHAPSODY!

In Honor Of A Long Time High School Girl Friend's Birthday Today!

Here is a playlist on Rhapsody that is actually pretty good. Since 1972 was a good year.... for us all, thought this might be a good gift for you ...& great fun for the rest of us!

Also check out: 70 ' s Explosion There are 96 more great radio hits here!

Enjoy! ...& Happy Birthday Linda!

What Is A Squidoo & How Do I Get One?

Join the Squidoo community!

No matter how diligent and thorough I am to explain this to you, no one on earth can explain it any better than the founder of Squidoo, Seth Godin. Click on the headline link and go directly to his "getting started" page.

Learn how to get started with Squidoo!

Not only can you make money but you can showcase your articles at the same time. You can have as many pages (lens) as you want. Share all your topics of interest with the world or only with your friends.

For an example of one Squidoo page, you can go to mine to see how customized a site can be. Go here: http://www.squidoo.com/USABemicall

Today's Lesson: What is Micro-blogging?

This post is dedicated to my husband who is wondering right now 'What in this world is this twitter thing and why is my wife so consumed with it?'

OK, I suppose my dear you should first understand what a blog is.

Think in terms of a journal or diary. People who write blogs are openly sharing information concerning their life, their business, their hobbies or passions or just simply whatever they enjoy writing about.

Therefore my Blog post today will be to explain to you (and others like you who have not yet joined the online social networking clubs) the importance of this new and fast growing form of marketing and communication. Afterward, I hope you will better understand and want to join in.

NOW DEF: Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates (say, 140 characters or fewer) or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web.

The content of a micro-blog differs from a traditional blog in that it is typically more topical, smaller in aggregate file size (e.g. text, audio or video) but is the same in that people utilize it for both business and individual reasons. Many micro-blogs provide this short commentary on a person-to-person level, or share news about a company's products and services.

I know it's easy to laugh at all the nonsense on Twitter.

The key question today isn't what's dumb on Twitter, but instead how a service with bite-size messages topping out at 140 characters can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary. Here's why I'm looking and here's why I now have multiple Twitter accounts. In the last few months, the traffic on Twitter has exploded, growing far beyond its circles of bleeding-edge tech enthusiasts and hard-core social networkers.

Businesses such as H&R Block and Zappos are now using Twitter to respond to customer queries. Market researchers look to it to scope out minute-by-minute trends. Media groups are focusing on Twitterers as first-to-the-scene reporters. (They were on top of the May 12 China earthquake within minutes.) Loads of new applications and services are growing around the Twitter platform, leading some to suggest that the microblogging service could become a powerhouse in social media.

Bit of History Concerning The Different Service Providers

In May 2007, 111 Twitter-like sites were counted internationally. However, the most notable service is Twitter, which was launched in July 2006 and won the Web Award in the blog category at the 2007 South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas.

The main competitors to Twitter have been Plurk and Jaiku.

Other leading social networking websites; Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Xing also have their own micro-blogging feature, better known as status updates.

With the growth of micro-blogging, many users want to maintain presence in more than one of these social networks. Services such as Socialthing and Profilactic will aggregate micro-blogs from multiple social networks into a single list. Services such as "Ping.fm" will send out your micro-blog to multiple social networks.

Is it all clear as mud now?

If you still need more information to to better understand the importance of Twitter in today's business world, I suggest you check out this 12 page slide show provided by Business Week at: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/05/0515_twitter/index_01.htm

I think we should open you a Twitter account and just let you "tweet" around till you get it. (NewAccount)

Now can you understand why your dinner may be a bit later on twitter nights?

Why I don't get out as much as I use to?

Why I get so excited when someone I believe is great, ... "Follows" me?

It's all good, they're not a stalker my dear. :)

Signed: ....Your loving wife

I really enjoyed this presentation.

Social Media Trifecta

View more presentations from Brian Carter. (tags: votingsocial bookmarkingsocial)