Ask yourself this question, “Do my followers / friends add value to my network on a day to day basis?” Hmmmmmmm. I’ve been through the motions and i can tell you from experience that chances are apart from your friends, they probably don’t.
For example I have roughly 23k followers. Wow right? WRONG. Out of those 23k followers i would only interact with about 300-500 of them on any given day (which includes other peoples RTs’ as well).
For me this is good news and its exactly when I started seeking for newer people that add more value to me and my network. (Thats not to say i won’t be there for my present followers and friends, but adding a new dimension wouldn’t hurt). Out of all the recycled content we see everyday, I’ve realized that i wanted something more fruitful and meaningful with my daily twitter routine.
What makes it worse is that there is only that much quality content out there, and chances are I’ve already seen it. After all tweeting ahead of the Western World has its pros and cons.
Ok enough about me here, lets take some simple steps to help you add more value.
Follow 1 person for every 10 who you follow.
Tweet Less, concentrate on blogging and/or reaching your target audience in different ways.
Do simple background checks of your new followers, see what they are interested in – do they match your description?
Formulate a simple strategy, see if it works and if it does stick to it.
Define yourself and be as exact as you can on your Twitter Profile so that others can clearly see what you bring to the table.
Follow lists curated by the best on Twitter. This is the best way to find interesting people without having to digg too deep. Try Robert Scoble’s if you’re into tech or head over to listorious.
Start reading the articles you tweet not just the titles and descriptions.
Don’t be fooled by people with alot of followers. What you should look for is the follower/following ratios. Just because some people have alot of followers doesn’t mean that they will add value to you.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions to people you respect or admire, even if they don’t get back to you.
Stick to it, be consistent with your approach and strategy. The value will surely follow.
Be opinionated.
Try the above steps out, I really feel that they will help you out. At the end of the day if you feel you add value to others then you deserve the same in return, but its up to you to filter it out. One things for sure and thats Twitter is changing, for the better. Go ahead and evolve with the system, Good Luck!!
A new HTML5 You Tube Player by Neo Smart has been born for those who’d like to catch a glimpse of the future of the web. Now you can watch your You Tube Videos without having to rely on Flash, which can be a serious resource hog depending on your operating system.
Most people are used to Flash on video sites and the capabilities of embedded Flash videos are far superior to this working prototype (but resource hoggy). That said its a good start and You Tube has even been testing their own HTML5 Videos on their site.
I tested on Firefox and Chrome over here on my Windows XP machine (yeah yeah i know, XP? LOL!). The player returned no video on Firefox and I believe its a Codec Issue. On Chrome the player runs without any problems, but the scrubbers can get a little buggy. Its a good start but still needs alot of work.
Go ahead and test it out for yourself at the Neo Smart You Tube HTML5 Viewer Page. Also check out the Grease Monkey User Script which adds a link to all YouTube video pages that points to the HTML5 version.
UPDATE: Dharmesh updates Grader every month and things are pretty much back to normal now. Before i wrote this post I was under the impression that the whole algorithm changed.
Sometime over the weekend Twitter Grader changed up their algorithm for ranking their top Twitter Users. Most of the top users out there that we all know and are fond of (ChrisBrogan, Zaibatsu, BuzzEdition, Scobleizer, GuyKawasaki, etc etc) cannot be found on the Top 100 users list and their grades have bumped down drastically.
A tweet from Grader and Dharmesh himself addresses the change in algorithm:
Just released a *massive* update to the Twitter Grader algorithm.http://twitter.grader.com – Ranks will be erratic for a bit.
My personal grade has suffered drastically and keeps on decreasing! LOL (speaking of erratic!). I am an advocate of change but can’t help thinking to myself how this will affect so many power users out there who regularly check their grades and compare with others?
Twitter sure seems to be changing, first with lists (and that war is just beginning) and now with this new algorithm that no one really knows much about. It’ll be interesting to see whats next in their bag of tricks!!
We are going through some seriously exciting times with everything happening in the Search World. Just today Google Social Search has been born into its experimental phases. What Google Social Search does is help you find publicly available web content from your social circle quickly so you can see what your friends are upto. Take a couple of minutes and watch what Matt Cutts has to say about this exciting new age of Search in the Social World.
If you don’t have the time i’ve briefly outlined the key benefits of using Google Social Search Below, scan through them and start today.
What is Public Web Content?
What Google means by Public Content is simply content that you have published on Twitter, FriendFeed and other various online social services. The most important item to understand here is that you have control over what you make publicly available to Google Social Search.
What Do I Need To Do For Google To Start Indexing Me In Social Search?
Google Social surfaces social content from 3 different places (Google Profile, Google Contacts and Google Reader) but as Matt Cutts says he believes that Google Profile will hold the most weight -he’s probably right too.
Google Profile: Go ahead and create a profile if you haven’t done so yet. The important part to remember here is that you should add your Social Links (blogs, twitter, friendfeed etc). By doing this you give Google the signal that you’ve opted in to make your stuff visible to the public, and once Google understands that it fetch your results from the different links you’ve added to your social search results.
Google Chat Connections: Another way for Google to add to your social graph is your chat buddies. Whats important to know that Google doesn’t publish your list of chat buddies, instead it just adds to your Social Circle so you can see their public information.
Google Reader: Everyone has a blog these days, and if you subscribe to a particular blog in Google Reader then Google can surface a post from that blog in your social search results.
Remember that the most weight here is on your Google Profile and the social services you have added there. For example on your twitter account you might be following 1,000 people; well once you added those various online social services to your Google Profile Google will now start adding those people within your social circle!!
Bear in mind for the Google Social Search to work for you, you must be logged into Google. What are you waiting for, head over to Google Labs and start checking out your social search results!
I very much liked what IA on Twitter said about The Practice of Web Design:
In my eyes, web design is neither an artistic exercise nor a scientific discipline but an economic practice…
He has a great point here as and this is a team who really excels in the niche that they belong to – WEB DESIGN. Taking inspiration from this singular quote i’ve listed some items that might help you start developing your design work into a full time business – so you can earn the money you worked so hard for.
What i love about Gary Vaynerchuk is his ability to paint a picture for “Non Techie” people and clearly explain how they can leverage Social Media today for their benefit. In this short interview with Abc News he briefly explains how he started using the web to his advantage and how the platforms today can help us brand ourselves into the future.
An interesting phrase Gary uses in many of his speeches that caught my attention was a term called “Sweat Equity” which describes the contribution made to a project by people who contribute their time and effort. Though the term “Sweat Equity” is Entrepreneurial in nature Gary strongly believes that the Social Web these days can be used by average individuals to help build and brand their products and services.
If you are looking to get inspired and learn along the way, Gary V. has the ability to put things in perspective for you – he did just that for me!
NOTE: If you want to cash into your passion now, be sure to check out Gary’s new book entitled “Crush It”. You can find it here.
Over the past couple of months I’ve enjoyed reading powerful content from a feed of 100 niche bloggers around the web. What I really like about this particular group below is that the way they attract and align their internet users’ behavior with the content they present.
Whether these great content creators are helping people get something done or reflecting on past and personal experiences, there’s certainly something for everyone in the following excerpts. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Welcome to my space on the internet. I'm currently CTO of Fluid New Media a web design, development and solutions company with a strong client focus.
Contact me for a quotation or my resume, if you're particularly curious.
(speaking of erratic!). I am an advocate of change but can’t help thinking to myself how this will affect so many power users out there who regularly check their grades and compare with others?
