About one hour ago, the Nobel Foundation announced that Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2009. As I blogged yesterday, the Nobel Foundation announced this via Twitter, as a complement to other channels.  I think it's great that the foundation wants to experiment with social media. But regarding the tweet, I have one tiny comment and that is, if you know you have something to announce, that many people will retweet on Twitter, you should ideally make room for that in your original post. Otherwise you are forcing people to change your message, in ways you might not want. For example by deleting the link to the original post. The tweet above is 136 characters long. For someone to retweet this with the @nobelprize_org included, the new tweet will be at least 155 characters, including "RT" and spaces. This is of course too long, the maximum is 140 characters. In other words, the ideal length of a breaking news tweet is about 120 characters. Tags: twitter, nobel prize, sociala medier, facebook, nobelpriset, twitter. Ping. Link to original post at Media Culpa: Link to original post read more >>
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 Business owners are accustomed to tracking their results when it comes to marketing, whether online or off. There are certain methods for calculating your return on investment which are in most cases pretty straightforward.
Along comes social media marketing and suddenly measuring your ROI isn’t so cut and dry. I am often asked how you can tell whether the time you’ve spent on social media activities is really making a difference. Here are some easy–as well as free–ways to help determine whether your social media efforts are sizzling…or fizzling. Profile engagement: Are people in your target market replying to you on Twitter, inviting you to join groups on LinkedIn, commenting on your Facebook wall, and so on? Followers and friends: I often emphasize the fact that quantity doesn’t always equal quality–but it is one indication of whether you’re being seen, heard and offering something of value. Blog subscribers: If readers like what they see and want to be notified of each time you post, you can be sure you’ve struck a chord with them–as well as increased the possibility that they will respond well to offers you make in the future. Newsletter subscribers: If the .. ... read more >>
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Perhaps it was my Monday exploration of Google Reader trends. Perhaps I’m inspired by (nay, copy-catting) Amber Naslund’s recent post, What I’m Reading, Vol. 1. But I want to make sure Twitter isn’t the only place I tip a cap to some good bloggers I’ve been reading of late. Consider this a bit of an extension of Follow Friday on Twitter. In the era when industry watchers are declaring blogs dead, These are five blogs I enjoy reading and why. Louis Gray - louisgray.com | RSS Feed Louis’s blog is billed as a, “Silicon Valley Blog for early adopters, technology geeks, RSS addicts and Mac freaks.” And it delivers on those promises. Louis is very smart and takes gadget blogging well beyond just that. He’s quickly becoming a go-to commentator on social media, technology trends and tools. Louis’s latest posts include: Mark Schaefer - {grow} | RSS Feed I had the pleasure of meeting Mark in person recently and I’m glad I did. Not only is he a fellow West Virginia Mountaineer, but has some fantastic . ... read more >>
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Today I was on a panel talking about social media best practices for PRSA Sacramento. My plan was to talk about social media and customer service. Instead, I ended up talking about the Grateful Dead. That’s a different post that will come soon. Since I didn’t cover the thoughts in the meeting today, I wanted to try them out here and see if they make sense to anyone else. In my view, customer service may very well eclipse news and conversations as the use of social media with the msot lasting impact. Consumers are beginning to expect immediate responses from companies when they mention a problem or poor experience with a product or service, and if they don’t get it they get louder. Is this somewhat self-centered, impatient or rude behavior? Yes, probably, but companies still have to listen and respond. My recommendation when looking at how your company deals with customer service using social media is boiled down to the “Three A’s.” Growing up going to baseball games at the Oakland Coliseum the “Three A’s” were the outfield of Henderson, Murphy and Armas, but the Three A’s here are: - Awareness – companies have to be always looking for people ...
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There are thousands of Wordpress Plugins available which do all sorts of  awesome things. Here are the five plugins which I use on every Wordpress site I set-up or administer: This is one of the most popular Wordpress Plugins and for good reason. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential in improving the chance of Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. sending visitors to any Website. With just a few mouse clicks the All in One SEO Pack automates SEO activities such as creating page titles, creating and filling the ‘description’ meta tag on each post and much more. Contact Form 7 is just so simple to use and it works beautifully. Adding fields or questions to a form is easy and can be done in no time at all. This Plugin doesn’t have some of the more advanced features of some other Wordpress form Plugins however what it does provide will suit 99% of requirements. This is a basic no nonsense and incredibly powerful Plugin which is essential for anyone frequently running SQL queries. This Plugin allows for the running of a SQL query from within Wordpress itself which can save significant time ... read more >>
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I was at the The “Twitter for Dummies” and Baveo.com Party! tonight and got a peak at the book, which I’ll pick up, and got to talk with one of the authors, Michael Gruen, of Twitter for Dummies. The Twitter for Dummies book was published yesterday, July 7th, 2009 (funny, isn’t that the same date that Chris Anderson’s FREE book came out? - see my recent post on“Free” Problems and Social Media Forensics using Radian6 and Blogpulse for my take on Chris Anderson and the whole “Free” thing - which you can read for “free” here). 
While we didn’t talk about Twitter, or really, much about the book (and that’s the funny thing, but sometimes Tweetups tend to be “unstructured” and there is a role for announcements - and maybe a short talk about the book, as part of a PR event, having some books on hand, would be optimal). Laura Fitton, @Pistachio, wasn’t at the Twitter for Dummies Tweetup, but she’s probably smiling because her new startup got funded last month - and I did see her speak at Jeff Pulver’s 140 Conference around the same time, as well. Laura “Pistachio” Fitton’s TechStars project, OneForty, has received an angel round of funding to the tune of around $250,000 ... read more >>
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Last night, Firefox 3.5 crashed and I finally had enough …. didn’t even bother to start it again, today. I’m finding Firefox as a browser, for whatever reason, is so unstable, has crashed so often, no matter how much Firefox is updated, it’s become fundamentally unusable for me, and this has been the case of multiple computers and operating systems. Google Chrome, which I haven’t used much, performs much, much better and is far more stable - and boy, is it fast. Plus Google Chrome is now releasing extensions - see The First Google Chrome Extensions: Block Ads, Check PageRank, and Use IE8 Accelerators in Read/Write Web including Page Rank for Chrome and Cleeki, an extension that delivers the functionality of IE8’s Accelerators to other browsers, a list that now includes Chrome. Fast …. means a lot now. This week (I call it a task because it’s not the kind of activity one wants to do often) updating some Web Analytics site tracking code across 180 profiles in WebTrends was cut down to 1/8th the time to do and with much less effort and mental fatigue. That means a lot to me …. THANKS GOOGLE CHROME!!!! You want to know what I care about? I care about not ... read more >>
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There are many, many WordPress plugins out there (WordPress has instructions on how to install plugins). Here are my top recommendations for the blogging lawyer/law student: 1. BackType Connect / IntenseDebate - BackType incorporates Twitter mentions into your comment stream. It unfortunately is not yet compatible with another favorite plugin of mine called IntenseDebate, which adds comment threading and other useful tools to the default comment functionality in WordPress. It can also synchronize with the basic WordPress system, so it is easy to turn on and off. 2. DB Cache + Hyper Cache - DB Cache speeds up database access by caching common queries. Hyper Cache makes static versions of Web pages (like WP Super Cache, but I’ve found it more focused and streamlined in its approach). The combination excels at reducing server resource consumption and serving the maximum number of visitors with the minimum resource use. 3. Tweetable - Automatically sends your new postings to Twitter, with the nice bonus of adding your blog name to each post. So, for example, my postings say “via in propria persona.” It also ... read more >>
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 I'm not a recruiter, HR executive or personal branding "expert". For most of my career I've been either a hiring manager and at times a job seeker. From that perspective I want to share with you some ideas on using social tools to rev up your job search and give you some insight from the hiring side of the desk. No discussion on this topic would be complete without a quick look at personal brand and why it matters in your job search.
If you have an online presence (in other words you don't live under a rock in a dark cave somewhere) you have an online brand. It's that simple, things created digitally on the web have a life of their own and can pop up anywhere. You can delete a pic off the social site but how do you know it wasn't replicated somewhere else? You don't. If you don't monitor and manage your online brand you are taking a big risk in your job search. As a hiring manager I will at least Google your name, 100% of the time, and I suspect most companies / managers do this as a matter of course. Depending on what I find on google I also usually try MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. You'd be surprised what you can find...or maybe you wouldn't. Honestly none of ... read more >>
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