Blogussion » social

Forming Your Network of “Weak Ties” for Achievement & Success

Derek Jensen — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:32:59 +0000

Everyone has their personal story of how they got to where they are right now. But, what if I asked you if you’ve formed your network of “weak ties” or what others may call an alliance or even an inner circle. These “weak ties” I want to talk about are people you have many casual talks with, but when it comes time to press forward they are there for you and will introduce you to their very own.

Weak ties are relationships that can always be brought together but strive to be as casual as possible.

First things first. We need to form our very own network of these so called “weak ties”. Now, I formed mine by establishing a connection with someone, then they knew someone, and then I met another person who happened to be Rob Rammuny. Rob and I really connected and he would be my first “weak tie”. From then on I began to build this network. This could happen to you. It’s all about the right action, amount of effort, and what you’re willing to put on the line for others.

The Choice is Yours

Like with everything you have to decide and in this case you have to decide whether forming a network of “weak ties” is what you want. Believe it or not I know many bloggers or people on the web that continue to do great things because they have formed this kind of network. You might notice whenever someone endorses or promotes a product on their blog, more than likely that person is apart of that person’s “inner circle“.

This is no membership kind of status, its merely a knowing of great people that you have trust in and want to carry out a casual conversation.

Importance of this Network

When deciding to adapt to something like this and start putting it into practice you want to know the benefits. Here are some and really will all depend on the chemistry of your specific network:

Talking about any blog expansions before you test it out in your community.
A start of getting something to go viral and getting yourself to truly stand out.
People will start to see your network and appreciate you and everyone else in the network. Support goes up!

Time, Effort, and Many Conversations

Everything, if you want it to be done right in your personal way, takes time and effort but many people still don’t get this.

Think about your true friendships. They just didn’t happen overnight and there is no such thing as an overnight success. It’s about time and using the time to your personal fullest with as much effort as possible.

This kind of network of people takes that along with many conversations. These conversations could consist of the following:

Seeing something you’ve done, here’s my input.
What you do in the free time and how’s your day going?
I came across this and thought you’d be interested.

These are of course just some of so many ways to get conversations started with people that you would like in your network. Just refrain from too much self promotion and the possibility of annoying them.

Also strive to brings these conversations offline over a good and comfortable amount of time.

Who to Look For

Now, who should you be looking for to join your network?

It’s really all up to you, but think about who is at your or around your level and who is higher than you or really who influences you. For example, I think Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Darren Rowse, and Matt Cheuvront are higher than me. I determine this by overall community response.

It’s all a matter of you pushing them and them pushing you

Then, I look at who is around my level. This is everyone else. Most people know who is higher than them and they look up to them for advice. But, many of us don’t know who we should talk to that is not in this “higher level” group deemed by the general audience.

This is where you have to decide the following:

What’s their mission, vision, and purpose?
What do they really care about?
What drives them?

All of us need to think about:

How will this person benefit me if I make good conversation with them?

Who knows the people you begin to network with might have their own network and then many more doors open up for you.

The First Steps to Formation

Know who you’re looking for and that you can help them and they can help you.
Treat your conversations as if you were standing next to them, striving to get somewhere in a healthy manner, but as casually as possible. (No sales pitches here)
Start building the relationship without becoming annoying. Make them your friend. Begin achieving success together.

Do you have this kind of network? If not, why?

Photo by Daniel Zedda

Dolphin 6 – Create Your Own Social Media Network

Janith — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:15:51 +0000

Social Media Networks play a significant role in how the internet functions. Every network; targeted as Reddit for Internet marketers to as open as Myspace or Facebook, and lately Twitter – they all have blasted on to the scene within the last few years and already dominate the internet.

So, it’s almost a crime to ask you this but – have ever wanted to run your own Myspace or Facebook? Well, Dolphin 6 makes it as easy as running a WordPress powered blog!

What is Dolphin 6?

BoonEx’s Dolphin 6 allows you to run your own Social Media Network that brings together some key features from top networks on the market right now. As quoted from their website; “YouTube, MySpace, Odeo, Flickr, Match and Facebook – all in one, customizable and under your full control.”

You can check an online-demo of Dolphin-6′s social network or its admin control panel.

(User: admin | Password: dolphin)

Dolphin 6′s Unique Features

Dolphin 6 comes with a whole bunch of wonderful features ranging from it’s most vital – 100% open source to minor but nevertheless critical features such as; smiley-packs (or emoticons) and RSS Feeds. If I could, I would list every feature of this open-source software but it has a seemingly unlimited list of them! Fortunately, you can read all of them over at their features page.

The beauty of this software is that it comes prepackaged with everything, and straight out-of-the-box – it’s a completely functional social network at your disposal! (Well, maybe a bit of customization is required, but it’s not much.) Everything from registration/log-in pages to customizable profile pages to different site structures – it’s got the lot!

Free Version V. Paid Version

Dolphin 6 is completely free, with all functional features but within the free version comes with a compulsory back-link to the BoonEx website. However, if this non-intrusive outbound link still bothers you; you can buy a license (ranging from $90-$2900) that will remove it.

The out-bound link to BoonEx is barely noticeable in my opinion, and shouldn’t be a worry but if it is; you have the option of getting rid of it.

Final Say.

You can run the network independently or even perhaps has a minor part of your blog? Adding a social network to a dedicated blog isn’t something you hear being done everyday but you never know what might be in store for you! If your interested in going down this field; it is definitely a worthwhile software to check out and tell us how it went!

Blog Optimization Series: Social Media Optimization (3/3)

Janith — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:02:19 +0000

Finally, the third installment brings us to Social Media Optimization. If you’ve missed the first two (Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing) – don’t worry because you can always go back and check them out.

After reviewing some of the response to this series (through comments + Twitter DMs etc.) it became quite clear to me, that most of our readers were interested in this section of the series-post.

So, I shall try not to disappoint!

Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization is exactly as it’s title suggests – optimizing your content for social media. Social Media Networks such as Digg, Reddit, Technorati and more recently – Twitter can be one of the most powerful tools to reach an unprecedented number of web-surfers.

Yet, like any other way you would promote your blog – you need to work on several key aspects of it.

Building Your Network

Personally, I think this is where most webmasters fail when it comes to Social Media. Many are under the illusion that you can make a Digg account, submit and article and just watch the traffic flow in. Or, more recently; many people expect to be able to open a Twitter account with some followers – tweet for a bit and then get a constant flow of traffic.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Just like everything else, you get out – what you put in. Social Media Networks rely on everyday web-surfers, just like, whom helps to put the spotlight on interesting content. So, you need to spend a lot of timing building your profile because without anyone to recommend you – you won’t get far.

Understand The Importance of Titles/Descriptions

When it comes to Social Media – everything depends on your title & description. Just like your submissions, there will be a million others competing for your reader’s attention.

How will a surfer judge which submission to read about? He/She will go with the one with the most appealing title. That’s just common sense – because if you don’t have anything else to base your decision on – go for the one that appeals to you the most.

Don’t just slap on a phrase to fill in the required field but instead actually take some time to come up with an interesting Title + Description. Just take a note; the title is your best weapon against the over-lookers.

Make Tagging / Bookmarking Easy

There are a countless number of plugins/scripts that make tagging & bookmarking easy – and it’s critical that you use at least one. A popular WP plugin that I would recommend for this aspect of the optimization would be; ShareThis.

When visitors come to visit your site and they read a piece of content that they like – it’s your responsible to equip them with social Bookmarking/Tagging tools. How often do you spend time directly visiting a Social Media Network – then logging in – then submitting someone’s awesome content? Not often, I assume because not many people will actually do that – I mean, why would they?

They have nothing invested in promoting your blog – other than the fact that they might want to spread the word on useful information you have provided. So, make sure your bookmarking / tagging tools aren’t that far away from the content-rich areas of your blog.

Offer an Incentive

This is a bit harder to acheive, but if you can offer an incentive – people are more likely to help you out. By putting an incentive up for grabs; you are encouraging people to blog about it, Twitter about it and even tell their friends about it.

A very common (and popular) example of offering an incentive is a Twitter contest. Simply; a Twitter-er will offer an incentive to all of his/her followers, and this will encourage people to follow him/her. It could be anything; from a free eBook to even some “under the table” advice

When it comes to Social Media; word-of-mouth is the essential key to success. If the people like it; you will make it.

Help Your Content Travel

Little things like asking for a Digg or a RT can go a very long way. So, take the time to help your content travel by doing your part too.

Ask people for help and in return, you should do the same to them. You can’t give nothing and expect to receive everything. So, Digg good articles and Stumble interesting pages – in the end, your success on Social Media Networks depend how active you are in those communities.

You are now Optimized.

It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve completed the series-post on Blog Optimization. If you really want to reach as many web-surfers as you can, it is important that you capitalize on all three of these promotion techniques. They complement one-another and together; form a formidable alliance!

If you missed the other two or want to recap you can check them out below;

Ultimate Social Plugin for WordPress: FV Community News

Janith — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:52:31 +0000

Running a successful blog is just as demanding as starting a business, meeting a goal or even running for the US presidency (exaggeration at it’s best!). It all depends on how much effort you put in and what you want to achieve with your blog.

Maintaining a successful blog and the above comparisons are by far different on many levels, but nevertheless they both require a type of confidence, a type of motivation and most importantly; a type of perseverance.

Anyways, moving on from the radical metaphors.. the point of that introduction was to highlight how hard it is to run a blog.

If you run a blog by yourself or with a friend – you know how easily how the workload can just pile up! When it comes to constantly writing good content, responding to your readers and obviously building on traffic – just too much for you to handle? Well, why don’t we eliminate “responding to your readers” as a chore and turn it in to a potential flow of targeted content?

Now, that would be a big positive because that would partially take care of two so-called “chores” of running a blog! So, what if there’s an ‘ultimate social plugin‘ that will do wonders to your site, ease your workload and EVEN please your readers? Well.. there is!

FV Community News allows your visitors to help you create more content for your site! A simple, yet ingenious plug-in to really incorporate your reader’s opinion and boost your site’s value, content and even SERPs.

As said by the developers themselves – “With this new Community News plugin you allow your visitors to add articles to the sidebar. Complete with moderation panel and a settings page, you can sit back while you have full control about the look and articles that being posted.”

Features

Currently, the Community News plugin has the following features:

Widget Ready (Different form/results widget)
Tags for use in posts/pages
AJAX Form Handling
Multi-Language Support
Moderation panel (with email option) – Make sure you approve the right articles
Edit Submissions
`My Submissions` Page
Customizable templates
Captcha Spam protection (on/off)
Akismet Spam protection (API key required)
Build-in RSS 2.0 Feed
Image Uploading
Settings
Uninstall Page
Configurable Responses

The Big Bad Wolf of FV Community News

That’s all the positives, but when it comes to using this plugin there are a couple of downfalls. The whole idea of allowing your readers to contribute with useful content is great – till you get spammers that try to abuse this feature.

You might find yourself accepting/rejecting articles added via this plugin a lot more than your comments ~ so, you need to balance out between free-content and loyalty of your readers. If you having problems with spammers, I would not even hesitate to suggest the use of Akismet and BadBahvious. The combination of these two plugins will take care most of your spammers!

Quick FV Community News Information

Author : Frank Verhoeven
Wordpress Version (required): 2.5+
Tested up to Version: 2.7
Current Plug-In Version: 1.3

What does it look like?

You can see the FV Community News in action over at DivitoDesigns. The side bar on the far-right is all content added by the readers. Also here’s a quick screen-shot of the actual Admin Control Panel, which can be accessed through your WordPress Admin CP;

Check it out, and let us know what you think!

Twitter – The Double-Edged Social Sword!

Janith — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:08:12 +0000

I’m sure everyone has got an account, or at least heard about this so called ‘revolutionary’ social-media network – Twitter.

It’s been 3 years since it was released to the public – yet so many bloggers and tweeters alike are like still talking about it, as if it just came out yesterday.

Everything from affiliate advertising to the number of teaspoons of sugar you had in your cup of coffee this morning is discussed on Twitter. So, why is this the double-edged social sword?

I remember reading an article a few months ago, that played a pun on a famous saying – and it went “Did Twitter kill the blogging star?” The title in itself was enough to grab my attention (just shows how important catchy titles are!) and that made me compelled to read the article. In fact, I think it’s an extremely worthy read for any social-media activist! After you read it, maybe my post here will make a bit more sense.

We know Twitter to be as a social-network tool, where you can catch up with your friends or even strangers on the internet – and get the chance to tell them every single little thing your doing. That’s all nice and well till you start actually reading some of the tweets and you feel that most of the people you are following are usually talking to themselves.

Naturally, if you are an iconic figure and have 1,000s upon 1,000s of followers – there’s bound to be stalkers awaiting to reply to your tweets. Apart from the big timers, let’s take a look at the average Tweeter, with a moderately strong social network built on Twitter. With about 100-500 people following their tweets, you would assume they are ‘pretty successful’ in this social-media? WRONG!

These ‘successful’ Tweeters, which are by far many, seems to be talking to themselves! Clustered in a bunch of other tweets – I would see a stranded user tweet the occasional “I’m going to sleep” or “I”m having breakfast”. Now, this is the true sense of Twitter and the purpose of it.

Unfortunately, today most web-savvy surfers use it as a marketing tool. This is all well, till we get spammers. Just bear in mind that spammers can take many forms from “lifeless severity” to “occasional advertiser.” I would say most users on Twitter are literally obsessed with the fact you can get nearly instant response to your lasted article posted on your blog.

Making a Twitter account on the sole purpose of creating a social network can quickly steer of course, when you seem to talk to yourself. We obviously can decide who we follow, and who we decide to un-follow later on, but you can’t help but feel a sense of separation amongst Tweeters that just don’t seem to get any replies. Thus, destroying the whole “social” aspect of it.

There’s only one way to combat this ‘Twitter Downfall’, and that is to be very selective on whom you follow. DON’T follow every Tom, Dick and Harry you see – hoping they will follow you! The idea is to build a true-community where statistics don’t reflect upon quality.

Try this for a change, unfollow all the spammers and marketers – then start actually talking to your followers. Then maybe, just mabye, you might capture the true essence of Twitter and reap it’s glorious potential!

Reach 4,000,000+ Web-Users using Twitter!

Janith — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:01:17 +0000

The renowned Internet marketing company HubSpot, recently did a study on the Web 2.0 Social Network – Twitter.

According to the study – 70 percent of the estimated four to five million people using Twitter have signed up in 2008 and 20 percent have joined in the last 60 days.

Which, over this recent period, calculates to 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts a day! Yeah, that’s right. That’s a whole new bunch of 10,000 users you can reach with your blog/service – every single day. That’s 3,000,000 new accounts a year, give or take more.

Now most of us have either heard about Twitter or are already twittering 1,000+ messages a day, but this statistical update was bit of a surprise to see so many new accounts made everyday. “A year ago Twitter was a relatively small community of techies and Web 2.0 geeks, now it is going mainstream,” the report said.

“Twitter is not only being talked about and used by a lot more people, but more and more marketing industry events and conferences are using Twitter as a standard means of communication,” it said.

Many popular users have in excess of 20,000 “followers” — people who subscribe to receive their 140-characters-or-less messages — However 35 percent of Twitter users have 10 or fewer “followers” while nine percent of Twitter users follow no one at all.

Still, if you can round up a few followers it can be a great way to keep in touch and tell your people your latest developments in 140 Characters or less.

So, why aren’t you twittering away? You can create an account for free and almost start twittering right then and there. Follw me on Twitter for instant updates!

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