@orangejack – my personal account

Started: June 2, 2007
Purpose: Personal account sharing things about me and interesting items I find online. Main account for interacting with others.
Listen Strategy: Only follow people I know and/or find interesting spanning various niches. Usually will not follow people back if their Twitter profile isn’t filled out completely. Since it’s difficult to listen to hundreds of people, I am very selective to whom I listen.
Follow/Following/Tweets: 520/1244/3991

@orangejackllc – my business account

Started: July 6, 2009
Purpose: Business account that automatically combines my blog updates and my Facebook Page updates into one place via Twitter
Listen Strategy: Only follow those I don’t mind endorsing from a business perspective. Not all are necessarily social media leaders, but all are using twitter well. They are informative, personal, and purposeful. Listening to this group helps me filter out the noise from my personal account.
Follow/Following/Tweets: 30/26/55

@lostsoup – blog updates about the show LOST

Started: Jan 29, 2009
Purpose: Started as a notification system for updates on the LOSTsoup Blog but I’ve used it for some interaction with other fans of the show LOST.
Listen Strategy: Started by following people who tweeted about LOST using the hashtag #LOST. Later I experimented using SocialToo in order to auto-follow those who follow the account. I made that choice because when someone follows, it’s not always evident whether they are fans of the show or not. I don’t want to exclude a LOST fan from being about to direct message me via lostsoup. However, since the number of people followed is so high, I usually filter the conversations by those hashtagging their posts with #LOST.
Follow/Following/Tweets: 1284/1048/646

@clemsonfootball – Clemson football news and game-day live updates

Started: Aug 28, 2007
Purpose: Post game-day live updates and occasional news updates — little commentary
Listen Strategy: First I started following known Clemson fans on Twitter. However, it is difficult to know which of my followers are Clemson fans, so I tried following everyone who followed me. Later I experimented using SocialToo in order to auto-follow those who follow the account. Lately I search for people talking about Clemson on Twitter and if it seems they are interested in Clemson football specifically, I follow them. Listening can be difficult since the people I follow don’t always talk about Clemson football. Therefore I use twitter search to filter the conversations.
Follow/Following/Tweets: 1007/834/2320

How I’m Listening

Since I have so many things I want to listen to on Twitter, I have found using tools to help me impossible to live without. Currently I’m using Seesmic Desktop to manage my Twitter accounts. Below is a screenshot of the tool and you should notice 4 columns – one for each of my accounts and the different ways I listen to each.

In the first column, I listen to everyone I follow with @orangejack. The second column are all I follow with @orangejackllc. The third column is a search for everyone using the hashtag #lost. The fourth is a search for anyone talking about Clemson.

Seesmic Desktop allows me to listen in these columns, then publish or respond to anyone from any of my four accounts.

PS. For further reading…

Recently there was a change to the Twitter Terms of Service (TOS). Mashable talks about the sorts of accounts you won’t see on Twitter in the future. If you read that, be sure to read Louis Gray’s reply about automated Twitter accounts.

Rounding off , Google still has about 70-75% of the search engine market while Yahoo and Bing (Microsoft) make up about 20-25%.  But here are the real numbers from July (source: Compete Blog)

I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t matter how many people want to follow me. It doesn’t effect me. More people, less people, whatever. No campaigns here to ask people to stop following me. The only exception I have is I don’t want spammers following me.

As for who I follow, I use intuition, checks, and tools to help me figure out who I should follow. Over time, these lists swell and sometimes you just gotta trim twitter down a bit on both the following and follower sides. Here are some of the tools I’ve found useful.

Topify – Make an informed decision as soon as someone follows you. Topify sends an email with bio information, latest tweets, etc to help me make a scan and decide if I should ignore them, block them, report them as spam, or follow back. All can be done from the email.

TwitBlock – Find spammers following you and block them. When you use this tool, go through each person one-by-one, don’t assume just because they are listed they are spammers.

UnTweeps – Find people you’re following who haven’t updated in a long time. You may find some here you’ll want to trim. Some you won’t want to trim because you want to know if and when they do update.

FriendOrFollow – Find out who is following you that you may want to follow back. Also find people you’re following who are not following you back. I don’t unfollow just because they don’t follow me back.

I encourage you that if you’re going to use tools to help you trim twitter, still go through each account yourself. Look at each one. Don’t let a tool make a decision for you – let the tool help you make the decision.

Until now. Facebook released a Twitter Exporter Tool that allows Page updates to go out to Twitter. Finally a step in the right (or outside the wall) direction!

It’s not the cleanest way to republish your Facebook Page content because most people will just add it to an existing Twitter account, but it works.

What I’ve done is added it to a Twitter account I’ve been sitting on: @orangejackllc for now to see how it works out. If you REALLY wanted to clean this up, create a new Twitter account just for your Facebook Page, then use that Twitter Account’s RSS feed and voila! You have a Facebook Page RSS feed held under 140 characters.

See? I told you it’s not the cleanest solution. That would be for Facebook to add RSS to the Pages, but this works.

SlideShare – Social Networking by Orangejack

One of the interesting things that happened was right after the presentation, I went to lunch at Bojangle’s and noticed on the placemat was an advertisement to join the Bojangle’s Facebook Page! And as I walked through the lobby, I saw a girl hold up her mobile phone and exclaim to the owner “I just joined!”

Yes, social networking happens everywhere — even OFFLINE!

Last week I received some feedback from an attendee (who also happens to be my Dad and runs Williams Technology Solutions in Simpsonville, SC) who received some business through LinkedIn after he answered a question asked in one of the groups in which he’s a member.

Yes, social networking happens everywhere — even ONLINE!

One of the points I wanted to drive home in the presentation is that Social Networking through Social Media has the same traditional roots we’re used to. Bojangle’s used traditional print advertising to find ways to connect with fans via Facebook. My Dad used the old principle of answering a question in an informed way. How traditional; yet both utilized new media.

It’s all about using new tools in new ways to do some of the same things we’re familiar with to conduct business and connect with others. Go figure!

The stats and sources of this video can be found on Socialnomics – Social Media Blog.

What’s your reaction to this video?

From: Check Twitter Before Yelling | Business Pundit.

From: Literally, Genevieve Clare – My mom just discovered emoticons.  She’s come a….

But a week or so ago Google Reader decided to become more “social” in letting you follow other people’s shared items AND for others to invite you to follow theirs. To decide if you want to subscribe to them, you can preview their feed.  And today I got spammed this way.

Google better get a handle on this fast!

10 Essential Steps to Developing Your Social Media Strategy

1. Understand communication channels change – Landmark changes include the print press, telephone, television, and radio. Web communication channels are a microcosm of the broad changes.
2. Set a goal – If you don’t know what you want to do, don’t start doing it.
3. Know your audience – Where are they online? How do they like to receive communications? Be prepared to go where they are.
4. Know your communication style Where do you excel? If your audience prefers communication in a style you aren’t well equipped, then outsource it.
5. Learn what tools do what – All social media sites are tools; knowing how these tools work and when to use them is crucial. Similar to knowing when to use a rubber mallet vs a sledge hammer – they are both hammers, but they work differently for different purposes.
6. Decide personal vs. professional – Make your decisions about what you want to share and what not to share. It’s okay to mix private and personal lives online, but do it appropriately.
7. Be ready to listen and respond – There are way too many tools to not be listening to what is being said to you, about you, your competitors, and your niche. Pay attention and interact appropriately.
8. Graph your social graph – This steps helps me to flowchart my web properties so I can see the big picture of how they are all interconnected.
9. Have a hub – It’s best to have one website to serve as the got0 place. All profiles should be linked and/or syndicated onto the hub. This makes things less complicated, especially for marketing.
10. Consolidate SM accounts – You don’t have to have an account for everything. Focus on one per niche to get started.
11. Aggregate into a lifestream – Because our social media profiles are so scattered, it’s great to have one place to pull it all together into a lifestream.