MediaFirst PR - Atlanta - Social Media

Lame to Fame: Whys & Hows for Taking Your Website to the Top

jimcaruso — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:09:09 +0000

As part of our participation in the Drupal community, I've offered a presentation for the annual North American conference in San Francisco, California.

The session is entitled:

"Lame to Fame: Whys & Hows for Taking Your Website to the Top"

With some specific requirements for functionality (semantic Web and social media) and usability (ease of content management and rapid response time), Jim will discuss what is making his business services Website ever more successful. How did a dangerously technical, business guy find the skill sets to run a small business site like the big guys? Why pick Drupal when all your friends run WordPress? What community resources are available and why you should connect? How using Drupal and being a member of the community helps my business. Key issues discussed are hosting, performance, themes, modules, and site-building.MediaFirst is in a Website redesign project using Drupal.

Link to

Link to my DrupalCon SF Session"

Twitter Influence & Tracking Tools

jimcaruso — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:05:07 +0000

Here is a quick list of Twitter tools, Websites with differing measurements of influence.

For real tracking, I like Filtrbox ( http://www.filtrbox.com/ ). Fitrbox has tool to check your influence, http://www.filtrbox.com/twitter.htm ranking you on a scale of 1-10 (10 is highest). Also, you can access this through their API.

Twitter Influence Trackers:

http://www.twitalyzer.com

http://twitter.grader.com

http://www.filtrbox.com/twitter.htm

http://tweetstats.com

http://twittercounter.com

tweetreach.com

http://twinfluence.com

http://www.buzzom.com

http://twscore.net

http://friendorfollow.com

http://klout.com

Twitter Activity

http://topsy.com

Twitter Statistics

http://tweetstats.com

twitteranalyzer.com <~ Results not valid

TweetEffect.com <~ Results not valid. Did not even come close to showing which tweets yield new followers or unfollowers.

LinkedIn + Facebook + Twitter Lead The Social Media Charge For Today's Business (& Business Professional)

jimcaruso — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Businesses and individuals increasingly see the value in online social media for industry connections or introductions and clearly for employment opportunities. Beyond these are company branding, business reputation management, and professional business networking. It is true that online networking can degenerate into the kind of networking event where you show up and everyone else is there to sell you what they have. But most online social networking can be contained to the important kind, not just a virtual room of vulturous vendors. "Old Style" professional connections are not dead, they've just met up with the latest technology tools.

Connect To Audiences Via Social Networks

These tools, such as LinkedIn (very B2B), Facebook (evolving to more B2B from a college-oriented service at it's start), and MySpace (very B2C and younger) let your firm have an online page or presence with it's own fans. These connections are individuals connecting to the business. Some list current and former employees. They are increasingly tied to other feeds, maybe your great press coverage. In any case, a forum where your firm and customer experiences are discussed. Beginning to see the value in monitoring and participating? The better known online social media services enable personal or professional, 1-to-1 connections. These services provide access and information on you and your firm.

Begin Here With This Social Media Starting Point

Here is a minimal plan for a social media presence for you and the company:

Customer-facing employees should be on LinkedIn and Facebook, and participate
The company should have it's own page on LinkedIn and Facebook
Employees should have a photograph on their LinkedIn page - 1/3 do not
Press releases and news should be aggregated on the company Website and probably via online services, such as del.icio.us (also now at Delicious.com), Digg.com, Reddit.com, or StumbleUpon.com
News and events can be posted on Twitter. Direct messages or replies on Twitter should be monitored, so you may respond - engaging with the audience for your firm.

There it is, a straightforward way to implement social media at your company. Remember that these tools represent are an innovation - just like any new tool that you might adopt for the business - so think of Social Media tools as part of the company's continual improvement program. (I'm a fan of W. Edwards Deming, a famous proponent of quality and continual improvement).

Get Started, Use Social Media For Your Business

Call Jim at 770/642-2080, x218 to talk more about social media for business.