Archive | Social Media
Top Social Media Rockstars PART 2
Last week we featured the first 10 out of 20 social media thought leaders that are movers and shakers within the industry. Today, we’re continuing with the second half of that list. Each individual featured has a hyperlink their blog site for easy following.
Pete Cashmore. The founder of Mashable at age 19, and also dubbed the Brad Pitt of social media, this Scottish entrepreneur was chosen as one of Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30, Forbes’ Top 25 Web Celebs and the Huffington Posts’ Top 10 Game Changers 2009. He has a weekly column on CNN and his blog has been selected as a must-ready by Fast Company and PC Magazine. BusinessWeek has featured his site as one of the world’s most profitable blogs.
Liz Strauss. A highly influential blogger, Liz created SOBCon, a conference that combines the best minds and talent from the Internet together to present models, discuss insights and determine best practices – in essence, where virtual meets concrete.
Biz Stone. This co-founder of Twitter (and creative director too) has also helped launch Xanga, Blogger, Odeo and Obvious. He’s published two books about blogging: Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content and Who Let the Blogs Out? These days it’s easier to follow Biz on Twitter. He currently has more than 1.6 million tweeps.
Brian Solis. As Principal of the award-winning new media marketing and branding agency, Future Works in Silicon Valley, Brian has paved the way for social media and PR 2.0. He is among the top 1.5% of all blogs tracked by Technorati and is ranked by AdAge Power 150 index of worldwide bloggers. His book, Engage, includes a forward from Ashton Kutcher.
Clay Shirky. Clay is an associate professor at New York University’s (NYU) graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). Not only is he one of the most requested speakers on social media in the world, but he’s a writer and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His columns and writings have appeared in: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired and the Harvard Business Review.
Brian Halligan. Author of the best selling book, Inbound Marketing, Brian co-founded the online marketing and analytics company, Hubspot. Brian is a Sloan Fellow from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a thought leader on the social media scene.
Dave Morin. In 2009, Fast Company named Dave one of the ‘100 Most Creative People in Business’. Until recently, Dave was a senior platform manager at Facebook. He is partnering with Napster creator, Shawn Fanning, to create a new startup.
Paul Chaney. Author of The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media, Paul understands at a granular level how social media tools can be used for marketing purposes. Paul serves as president of the International Blogging and New Media Association, an organization dedicated to advancing the growth of blogging, podcasting and social media as an industry.
Mitch Joel. Author of the book, Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch has been called by Marketing Magazine the ‘Rock Star of Digital Marketing’. He is also known as one of North America’s leading digital visionaries.
Lee Odden. In Michael Miller’s book, Online Marketing Heroes, Lee was chosen as one of 25 online marketing experts to be featured. His experience and background in social media has been cited by The Economist, U.S. News & World Reprot and Fortune Magazine. Lee is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing.
Top 20 Social Media Rockstars (part 1)
Thought Leaders
It is important in any industry, no matter what level you are at, to keep learning. I am always looking around in my community to hear what others are thinking and compare notes. Thankfully many of the leaders in Social Media publish, sharing their knowledge and insights regularly. They are a joy to learn from. I put together this list so that you might benefit from their generosity as well.
There are quite a few thought leaders in social media. Identifying and selecting the best of the best is completely subjective, but I feel that the folks I’ve listed below are true stand outs in the pack. Without further adieu – the 20 best social media experts have been shared along with a bit of their backgrounds, accomplishments and key achievements (in no particular order).
Chris Brogan. Author of New York Times Bestseller, Trust Agents and president of New Marketing Labs in Boston, Chris is a true social media Guru. He has more than 108,000 followers on Twitter and 48,050 blog subscribers and I am one of them.
Gary Vaynerchuk. Famous wine aficionado, Gary is a living example of how to make social media work for your business and brand. He single-handedly transformed his family’s annual retail wine store profits from $4 million to $50 million through video posts on Wine Library TV. He has more than 850,000 followers on Twitter and 42,000 Facebook fans. Using social media, he has democratized oenophilia.
Amy Jo Martin. Founder of digital integration and social media agency, Digital Royalty, Amy works with entertainment brands, professional athletes, sports teams and organizations to catapult them into the online here and now. She’s a social media maven to the core.
Jay Baer. Having worked with some of the biggest brands, Jay founded five companies and spent 15 years running digital marketing agencies. His highly popular blog, Convince and Convert, provides readers with social media strategic planning and consulting advice that is on the cutting edge of technology.
Felicia Day. A canadian-born actress and self-proclaimed ‘media geek’, Felicia is a social media phenomenon. She’s the producer of a YouTube web series called The Guild which garnered more than 15 million views and has appeared in the Internet musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It may not sound like much, but she’s an amazing expert at integrating her brand into social media. Nearly 1.7 million Twitter followers can’t be wrong.
David Meerman Scott. A marketing strategist and author, David has a knack for predicting social media trends before they occur. His best selling book, ‘The New Rules of Marketing & PR’, is being followed-up with ‘Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs’. He is an an active online social media contributor and speaker.
Guy Kawasaki. A founding partner of technology venture capitalist group Garage and co-founder of online magazine rack site, Alltop.com, Guy has written nine business and marketing books. He began with Apple and has since transformed himself into a social media leader that consistently remains ahead of the curve with his social media insight.
Mari Smith. Dubbed by Fast Company as the ‘Pied Piper of Online’, Mari is a social media business coach and strategy expert for small businesses. She is her own best case study for brand development. She regularly travels the speaker circuit sharing advice and providing social media training to thousands. I love her trademark blue shirt.
Jeremiah Owyang. A partner at Altimeter Group and columnist for Forbes CMO Network, Jeremiah interprets news as a web strategist and reviews technology products as they are related to social media. His blog is currently ranked at #28 by AdAge Power 150. I always come away with great insights after reading his blog.
Valeria Maltoni. Listed as a Top Marketer for 2009 in AdAge, Valeria’s blog Conversation Agent is one of the top online blogs in the world. She was handpicked by Fast Company as an expert blogger to write about creating conversations between the customer and marketer and built one of the first online communities connected to a magazine.
I’ll be posting the second half of the social media expert list next week. Stay tuned.
Video editing for social media
MAKING YOUR VIDEOS DELIVER
Multimedia is an integral part of both our online experiences and real life too. Sharing videos with friends, family, customers and colleagues is one of the simplest and fastest ways to communicate with one another. As they say, seeing is believing.
Of course, using video to communicate marketing messages is not new, but using it as part of your social media marketing is. If you want to create one of those sought after viral videos, you need to deliver great content. But you also need to edit it just right. Since you wouldn’t sell your car without a good wash and wax, you don’t want to send videos without refining them for viewing. The results you want might just be a matter of details.
Well, finding a good video editing site just got a little easier.
SUGGESTED VIDEO EDITING SITES
First up on the online video editing list is Motionbox. Registration is required, but members have unlimited video storage, large file upload capability and easy-to-use online editing tools. A standout feature is Motionbox Pro. This is an affordable hosting solution for business and commercial users. Plans start at $24.99 a month and include HD video for large screen viewing and large file format playback for professionally produced pieces that may require more bandwidth to watch.
Another video editing site One True Media. Similar to other online video editing sites, One True Media has basic and premium membership options for members. What make this site different is that it allows members to edit video and photo montages with transitional effects, music and custom labels and cases for DVDs. This is worth checking out if you’re planning on sending out copies of your video to publishers or professionals for review.
With JayCut, online video editing can be conducted by integrating their application into your existing website or through JayCut’s community. An award-winning company, JayCut gives members the options to make videos public or private. Uploading edited videos to other platforms is made effortless with video tutorials to guide you through the process.
Next on the online video editing adventure is Intuitivlab’s MixMoov. The site lets you add elegant transitions, text and apply visual effect to imported media. It uses drag-and-drop storyboards to layout clips and assemble them into a final video. If you’ve ever used Windows Movie Maker, it’s similar.
Meet the ‘fairly’ new kid on the block, Pixorial. This is quickly becoming one of the most popular online video editing sites. At first glance, Pixorial appears to be a video version of Shutterfly. Making DVDs, sending videos via UPS, creating video cards and other features make this online editor robust and, quite frankly, fun.
Notable mentions for video collaboration: Photobucket and Stroome.
Social Media Networks Built For Authors and Writers
Ning helps authors connect, and writers craft their work
Despite all the information, resources and data available on the Internet today, there are instances when you just can’t seem to find what you’re looking for. This is especially true for people who are are trying to connect exclusively with other like-minded individuals. In our case, this would be authors and writers.
Fortunately, some amazingly tech-savvy person recognized this and created a brilliant social media tool called Ning. Ning is a free social platform that lets you socialize your brand, amplify a cause that you’re passionate about or create a hub for people to gather with common interests. It allows users to develop and design their own customized social pages with rich-feature capabilities, such as personal blogs, chats and forums.
Similar to the information super-highway, Ning has a tremendous amount of social networks and millions of active members on each of them. The nice thing about Ning is that whatever you can’t find, you can build yourself. For example, if you’re someone who enjoys building styrofoam pink bunnies out or recyclable materials and setting them on fire whenever there’s a full moon and you want to meet other people just like you – you can set-up your own Ning network for that specific purpose.
Because it’s always nice to meet other writers and exchange successes, challenges and knowledge, we looked at what Ning had to offer in author/writer genre and discovered that there are some great Ning networks available for to join.
Writer’s Digest Community (WDC). Hands down, this is one of the most comprehensive Ning networks available for authors and writers alike. Presently, it’s 4,011 members strong and growing. The WDC features online events and competitions to get your creative writing juices flowing, a guide to literary agents, an online store and a WDC badge to proudly display to show your support on your website’s home page.
Independent Writer’s Network (IWN). This Ning destination is a place that describes itself as being a place where writers can promote their works, share ideas and encourage others. Through this network, members can build their own sub-network page or create their own sub-groups. What makes IWN a stand-out is that content is fresh and relevant to the network’s focus. Definitely worth checking out.
The Writer’s Network (TWN) (affiliated with OnceWritten.com). On TWN you’ll find a wealth of information relating to all things author and writer. Members and OnceWritten.com have compiled a plethora of excellent tips, how-tos and resources that make starting out for a newbie or enhancing what you’ve got for the seasoned pro a complete breeze. Well-supported and updated hourly to daily, TWN is an excellent Ning network.
Other mention-worthy Ning networks include:
World Poets & Writers Registry
Take a moment to explore Ning on your own and you’ll find that there are many niche writing networks, including crime, horror, afro-punk and countless others. There’s truly something for everyone.
Month 2 Conference Call
Listen in here to find out about metrics, targeting your niche and more about getting the most from your social media.
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Social Bookmarking Sites For Social Media Marketing
You have a voice. You wield influence. Your voice reaches out to millions of others on the internet to give your approval, or disapproval. You tell us what has the value, what speaks to the tribe, and the tribe follows. That’s the value of bookmarking.
Social Bookmarking is now an integral part of any major social media marketing campaign. They are communities of influence, filtering through massive amounts of internet information; voting sites up or down, cataloging them with folksonomy, and allowing individuals to create their own “internet rolodex”. The community benefits by connecting to high value content. Ultimately if your site is bookmarked you can benefit by large amounts of traffic, higher page rank, and community support.
In order to benefit from Social Bookmarking, I would recommend using the following sites. Make note of the culture and values of each community regarding things like story submission, friending, and tagging. You can lose points in a community just as fast as you can win them.
Technorati- Save Your Online Content as “Favorite”
Users of Technorati have the option to save their online content and favorite links on the site so that other users can access them. The option “Technorati Favorite” allows you add the URLs of your own website or other URLs that you want to share with other Technorati users. Any visitor to your website can add your site to their Technorati bookmarks by clicking on the button.
StumbleUpon- Stumbling with What You Like or Dislike
‘Stumble’ your favorite link is the concept associated with bookmarking on StumbleUpon. With simple installation of StumbleUpon toolbar, you enable sharing of your favorite links with others on StumbleUpon. By clicking on the Thumbs Up button on the StumbleUpon toolbar and adding categories and quick tags to the site, you allow other Stumblers find the links that you want to share. While stumbling across the web, you can also narrow down your search by selecting categories or topics. The most functional part of using StumbleUpon is connecting with web searchers who have found useful sites and shared them with other users.
Reddit – Paint The Web Reddit
Reddit has its features and functions similar to del.icio.us. It allows the users to share links, content and quote for the links submitted by other users. The most popular post can find a place on the front page of the website. SubReddit, the subnetwork of Reddit helps you find the most appropriate category for your links.
Del.icio.us- Defining Social Bookmarking
Deli.icio.us has set a standard among the social bookmarking sites for its easy-to-use and functional features. It has been an excellent tool for people who are into research and data mining. As one of the oldest, densely populated sites with the most content of many social bookmarking sites, del.icio.us has a strong community. You need to install a standard button onto your web browser to bookmark your favorite links. Unlike the bookmarking process of other social bookmarking sites where you get a pop up window to enter info about the site, del.icio.us takes you to that particular site to provide information and again comes back to the original site.
Digg- All You Need is to Digg
Allowing anyone to summit a Digg, Digg is combination of RSS, blogging and social bookmarking. The site is popular for as a technology news website. Users can share their views on any Digg and submit stories and review. In fact, the Digg community is open about comments on stories and sites. The website is caters to technology related items.
Mixx- Connecting to the World Broad Web Content
User generated content being the most striking feature of Mixx, the site offers a wide range of bookmarkable content for the Mixxers. The social bookmarking site has simplified the process of submitting stories, photographs and videos for the users who can pick from a wide array of categories to post their content. You can also use features like tags, classes and exact users to increase the searchability of your content. Mixx users can find their required content and bookmark it by picking a category.
Propeller- Simplifying Social Bookmarking
Mostly, Propeller works as other social networking site like Digg or Del.icio.us. Users submit their stories, or find them, comment on other stories or vote for them. The most popular of the stories goes to the top. You need to register with the site if you want to join the propeller community. Otherwise, reading the submitted stories on the site doesn’t need any registration. Sharing your stories with the community can help them know your views on a particular topic. Also, you can access the valuable posts shared by other researchers. The most remarkable part is that Propeller is convenient even for the non-techie web users.
Y!buzz- Creating a New Buzz with Social Bookmarking
Like any other social bookmarking site, Yahoo!buzz has created a buzz among the users for social bookmarking through user interface. Apart from quality content, and better editorial control, the site is popular among its audience for its different user-friendly option like e-mailing favorite news and stories to friends. You can buzz your stories and share them on other popular social networking sites. The news that is hot among the audience gets high rank. Submitting to Yahoo!Buzz also has another great advantage. You can have the headline of your stories displayed on the Homepage of Yahoo.
Fark – Ethical Networking
Fark is a kind of social bookmarking site that accepts posts submitted by only regular users. The site can be found as a massive compilation of articles and news. TotalFark subscribers can submit their favorite links to share them with other users of the site. Links are evaluated by the administrator and the best stories get a place in the Fark homepage.
If you have any other suggestions, please comment below.
Book Marketing Using Social Media: An interview with Author Brian Moreland
Award Winning Horror Author Brain Moreland tells how he made his book an overnight success using social media.
A few highlights:
He started with a self published book and gained such a wide audience using social media, that a publisher picked up his book. He now has a mass paperback deal.
His book won a gold medal. Learn what specific steps he took to ensure that his book would be considered.
He shares his tips for authors who are also using social media for book marketing.
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