The past few posts I’ve been focusing my research and attention on the phenomenon of social media. I have to admit it fascinates me, but the goal of course is to make it work, from a business stand point. How can online social networking help your business? And how do you choose from the hundreds of sites that make this available?

I’m going to deal with a number of well-known sites, each one I have reviewed in the last few weeks. Now I’m going to list out each service’s pros and cons so they can all be compared.

Pros:

• Networking Intensive
• Open and chatty community
• real time answers.

Cons:

• Time intensive
• Navigation not intuitive
• Leans towards the internet savvy

Pros:

• Great way to “poll”
• Close to Real Time but simple to use
• Ability to automatically feed blog posts

Cons:

• Too much down time
• Often Tweeple are more interested in getting follower than networking
• Superfluous information

Pros:

• Community Opportunity
• Clean Profile look – user friendly
• Ability to create applications, events and blog posts

Cons:

• Audience not “marketing” friendly
• Networking more social
• Ability to be tagged in notes and images that may not be work appropriate

Pros:

• Massive Audience
• Forum opportunity
• Widely-Accepting to advertising

Cons:

• Spammy
• “Bathroom wall of the internet” – reputation isn’t great
• Friend Collectors instead of clients

Pros:

• Simple, Clean, Business-friendly
• Opportunity to get business feedback
• Chance to get reviewed by clients

Cons:

• People may “reject” your link because they don’t remember you
• Many users don’t check-up on their profile regularly
• Not all people network with others they actually know

Pros:

• Viral effect for blogs
• Simple way to get noticed
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Many people “digg” things because their friends do, not because they like it
• Hitting the front page of Digg has been known to crash websites from too much traffic
• Millions of submission to compete with

Pros:

• Easy for any website
• Allows for site indexing
• Allows for reviews and keywords

Cons:

• Takes a little more time
• Can be bad for niche sites with advertising
• Allows the opportunity for people to rate you negatively

Pros:

• One of the longest standing Social Bookmarking sites
• Allows you to import bookmarks
• Ability to share of keep private based on user needs

Cons:

• Usefulness is merely just an extra link without good user connections
• A hassle without a toolbar extension
• Format is not instinctive

Are there any other social media sites you’d like to see reviewed and added to this list? Let me know what business tools you use.

I know Twitter’s been having a hard time with capacity, but it is still a useful tool in my mind. Last time I discussed Twitter I gave a general overview. This time I want to look more in-depth at what Twitter can do for business owners.

Time Warp

First of all, know that Twitter is an investment. Just like real life networking, it takes a certain amount of patience and persistence. It takes relationship building. Strangely enough, many business owners write off services like Twitter because they “can’t reach their audience” or they “don’t have time”. And yet they are willing to sit through a two hour luncheon, talk about their business for 30 second and get one or two leads (maybe). Pause and consider this for a moment; if that is good networking, how can Twitter not be? Twitter will list your activities for the whole world to see 24 hours a day. Even if you update just once a day and make 5-6 replies… you’re still building your brand! If you still think this is time misspent, check out Problogger’s argument about how all forms of communication can be a waste of time when handled inappropriately.

Follow the Leader

Once you’ve made up your mind to get on Twitter you might not know where to start. Who do you follow? How do you get people to follow you? Rule #1: Never, ever try to follow 20,000 people and see who subscribes back. Just don’t. Its just another form of spam. You may be completely legit but most serious business owners will dismiss you. I suggest searching for people with similar interests. Check out some names in your industry who you admire. Find posts that interest you, and give them some feedback (Remember: the Golden Rule is Networking!). If you need some more help, check out some useful tools like Twellow. Or find people in your area with TwitterLocal. There are lots more!

Quality over Quantity

Some people post 40-50 times a day on Twitter. That’s fine if you want to and have the time. However, I suggest making quality posts about your business, your website, your blog – just a few times a day and giving lots of replies back. Follow one or two new people everyday. If you talk about what interests you, maybe ask some questions, you should start building worthwhile relationships. Not only will people respond to you on Twitter but you should start seeing increased traffic to your blog, articles and website.

The Niche Glitch

I’ve mentioned previously that social media is a lush garden of opportunity for tech-inclined individuals. This does not mean if you aren’t a techie you aren’t welcome. In fact, I love finding writers, stay-at-home moms and students: they give some of the most meaningful feedback. I was just commenting the other day how I wish more “everyday” businesses would create corporate Twitter accounts; I’d follow them in heartbeat. If Barnes & Noble put up book deals on Twitter, I’d check my feed every hour! But not just big business, small ones too. If the owner of Dunn Brother’s Coffee Shop in Addison had a Twitter account, I’d promote them constantly!

Twitterpated

You don’t need to be twitterpated (or smitten, for the Disney illiterate) to appreciate Twitter. It is a tool. You don’t have to write about how you got stuck in traffic or the 5 different salad dressings offered at lunch. But you can write about events you’re attending, sales, opportunities or just what makes you passionate about what you do. You’ll be pleasantly surprised that being real with people on the internet, might just close a sale.

Feel free to follow me: http://twitter.com/Veribatim

When I first wrote about my experiences with Plurk, the social media site was still very new, and I had only been toying with it for a few days. Now that its been a month, I wanted to write a follow up post.

Plurk and Twitter: The Continued Saga

Everyday I see someone on Plurk post a blog or other entry comparing Plurk and Twitter. Overall, most of the social media savvy say that the two websites are very different and not comparable.

Bitter Twitter

Are Twitter users boycotting Plurk? Its a rumor in Plurkland. Obviously, not everyone will like Plurk. The rapid pace and disjointed time line can be more than one ADD person can handle. However, many Twitter users are trying plurk on for size. The Twitter community is full of techies and early adopters, most of them will at least use Plurk before they knock it.

Plurkopia

It is true, that many “Tweeple” have left Twitter in favor of Plurk. I do not believe Plurk is stealing Twitter user. Many people have become fed up with Twitter’s lack-of reliability and were bound to leave anyhow. Plurk just happened to offer a vibrant, similar experience.

Plurk has many of Twitter’s good points. In fact, users often grow to love (and obsess) over their Plurkiness. Will the utopia of Plurk last? Maybe. Plurk grew quite rapidly the past few weeks and though it hasn’t experienced anything like Twitter’s Failwhale, there have been a number of small glitches. Is it due to over-capacity? Or is the Plurk team working hard to prevent the problems Plurk developed? Its hard to say.

Plurk Fever

Over the past month I plurked a few questions to take Plurk’s temperature, so to speak. At the beginning of June I asked how people felt about the service. I asked a similar question last week. Some of the answered varied in that period of time, for example:
June 5th:

And then on June 23rd:

Many people who plurk regularly think website takes up a lot of time and becomes addicting. But more people toward the end of the month felt like they had adjusted to plurking reguarly and were enjoying it. Some commented that the interface took time to adjust to (I felt the same way). But overall, Plurkers feel positive about Plurk.

Plurking: Serious Business

I’d like to end on how I think businesses can benefit from Plurk. After discussing business ideas with an internet postcard company, I realized how much they could benefit from plurking about their concept. Most plurkers are early-adopters and many of them have a business closely tied to the internet. So if your business can be marketed to knowledgeable internet users, welcome to your perfect market! Plurk, at the moment, is mostly a niche market. Not all companies have the time to devote to social media as it is, and would not be able to build relationships with other Plurkers. But if you use the internet on a regular basis and so do your clients… isn’t one of the keys to marketing, go where your clients are?

If you have also written an article about Plurk please put a link in the comments. I love reading other Plurkers views.