virtualDavis

Once you find time for social media and move from social chatter to using social media for a purpose, you’ll see firsthand how difficult it can be to get noticed… How do you cut through all the social media noise and get people to notice what you have to say? Fact is, it’s not always easy.  To help you, here are 10 ways to make your message more likely to get noticed:

1. Simplify Your Message
2. Find Your Space
3. Use Appropriate Channels
4. Spread Your Message
5. Get Help
6. Appeal to Ego
7. Cut the Clutter
8. Appeal to Primitive Instincts
9. Use Keywords
10. Stick to One Point

Getting your message out there is not always about what you say but as much how you say it. Don’t just shovel your messages out into your social media channels. Think carefully about your audience, what they like and react to, and what else is going on within those services and networks.

Most of all… It’s not what you say that matters, but what your readers hear!

It’s your job to keep crafting and honing your message until you get it right. If people don’t “get it,” keep working until they do!

Chris Garrett‘s post is a good reminder to everyone using social networking for anything more than mere entertainment. If you have a message that you’re trying to spread, these ten steps are a good starting point! Read the full post on via Social Media Examiner.

I’ve discovered that the top thought leaders on the web will bend over backwards to help a true fan. Let’s talk about how to become one… (PushingSocial.com)

Despite the goofy Michael Jackson admission/reflection, Stanford’s three tips for how to get your blog noticed and promoted by super influencers is on target:

1. Help influencers create, curate and promote their content
2. Become a “true fan” by learning, following and recruiting
3. Act now; don’t get derailed asking, begging and waiting

As Seth Godin explains: “Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness later.” Seems germane here, no? You’re hoping to change an influencer’s opinion of you (notice you, respect you, refer you, etc.) and there’s no better way to do this than to contribute your own influence. So long as it’s authentic endorsement. Keep it real! Life’s too short to pose or pander, and your integrity’s all that you’ve got!

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS and blogging platforms around, mainly because it is free and it is 100% customizable… I will showcase 20 of the best WordPress Tutorial Blogs that have written many wonderful and insightful articles with various tips that either helped me optimize my blog for SEO, helped secure my WordPress installation from hackers, to finding the best WordPress themes , or even creating my own WordPress theme for my blog. (Web Design Fan)

I recently helped a friend with her blog, poking around under a WordPress hood for the first time in years. I was impressed. It’s a whole different beast from what I experimented with years ago, and I now understand why it’s the world leader among blog/cms software when ranked by number of users. Impressive! And I’m going to keep exploring in the weeks and months ahead. This posting is a great springboard for new-to-WordPress bloggers. Do you know of any other great WordPress resources?

Your story is the price of admission to the campfire discussion that is happening around your products and services every day. Without a Story – you are just an annoying salesman. ~ PushingSocial.com

We tend to get hung up on the “bells and whistles” when we talk about digital storytelling. Substance? Oh, we’ll get to that later. Later? Why bother telling a story at all if you haven’t covered the basics. It doesn’t matter how spiffy the wrapper if the gift is overlooked. Stanford’s posting is a reminder that you must build a good brand story if you want admission at the digital campfire. He offers three tips:

1. Tell your brand story from your customer’s POV
2. Create mini-stories about the benefits of your product/service
3. Adapt you brand story for use on multiple social media platforms

“Let me tell you a story…” It’s almost always a winner. No doubt you’ve tapped the interest of you listener/reader/viewer, especially if the context/relationship promises relevance. But even when it doesn’t, it’s human nature to be curious, to enjoy storytelling, to make time for a short narrative adventure before plunging back into the quotidian.

Stanford is spot on when he observes, “In our zeal to evangelize Social Media – we forgot to tell you about WHAT you should be talking about!” Bingo. The abundance of powerful digital storytelling tools available today is enchanting. And sometimes we become so enchanted with the “how” that we forget the “what”. Summer marks the much anticipated season of dazzling special effects blockbuster movies, and yet audiences often complain that a movie fell on its face because it had no story. Snazzy visuals, sound effects and superstar actors can’t redeem an ill-crafted story. Thanks for bringing the focus back to the basics!

Read the full posting at PushingSocial.com.

Game changer? It will be interesting to see how this affects the explosion of web video. Google’s Vic Gundotra unveils a new open-source video format called WebM that it’s rolling out in conjunction with Mozilla and Opera.

Unfortunately, today’s “social media” conversation is all too often like the Buddha on the road. Instead of discussing the profound impact the phenomena is having within businesses, society and brands, the conversation is often focused on setting up a Twitter account or the next “viral video” — tempting eye candy that shifts the attention away from the transformative nature of this emerging form of human communication. It can be argued that the term “social media” itself is stunting the potential of the very force it is trying to describe and, hence, has outlived its usefulness.

via imediaconnection.com

Michael Arrington’s recent TechCrunch post about old media “guys” who don’t get it made me realize how far things have come — and how much better they’ve gotten — in the world of journalism.

The Way Things Were (Wrong)

Why, for example, could we could lift from other sources without offering attribution? I remember when a librarian at ABC News taught us how to use news databases to find stories from local media that could serve as grist for our mill. On another occasion, I pretty much re-reported a Japanese magazine’s story for Newsweek. The Japanese magazine’s editor called me out privately, but I never paid any further price…

The Equation Is Changed

I remember… the first real-time chat between people in China and a major news website… the experience was raw, unfiltered and direct from the source — without any correspondent to tell us what was being said. The unlimited space, flexibility of time, and ability to bring others into the conversation broke down the barriers that the journalist can place, even inadvertently, between those involved in the news and those interested in it…

Change for the Good

Access to information has, obviously, improved as well. Search engines such as Google and myriad other information sources, from Twitter and Facebook to Digg and Delicious, have made it easier to be sure we don’t miss what’s relevant. They can also enable us to find serendipitous links that take us on new journeys. Sure, there’s still proprietary information locked up in Factiva, Nexis and Bloomberg terminals, but you’d be hard-pressed to convince me we have less access to good information today than we did before the web.

Accountable advertising

Today, in digital media, advertisers can at least tell if their ads have been served to (and presumably seen by) a viewer…

Read the full post at pbs.org

Hat tip to Dorian Benkoil at MediaShift for this insightful post about the merits of new media (despite his preference to stop calling it that.) These highlights gloss some of his insightful examples, so you’ll want to read the full post over at PBS.org. I’m especially drawn by his emphasis on attribution/transparency and the idea that it’s become so much easier for real people to share their unfiltered experience in real time. Less clear to me is his assertion that, “Journalists are also now held to a higher standard, and have to be more transparent.” I hope this is true, but I’m not always as confident as he is. Do you agree that today’s journalists are obliged to be more transparent and distort information less than in the past?

Today, Facebook co-founder and My.BarackObama.com alum Chris Hughes announced the soft launch of Jumo, his new philanthropic start-up that works to match do-gooders with appropriate causes.

Currently, the Jumo site is merely an elegantly designed homepage that announces Hughes’s mission to “bring together everyday individuals and organizations to speed the pace of global change. We connect people to the issues, organizations, and individuals relevant to them to foster lasting relationships and meaningful action.”

via mashable.com

Seth Godin (author of Tribes which is captivating me at present) offers an epic list as “a partial answer” to the question, “How can I drive more traffic to my blog?” Here are my “Top 10” favorites from his list:

1. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
2. Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
3. Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
4. Do email interviews with the well-known.
5. Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
6. Post your photos on flickr.
7. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
8. Point to useful but little-known resources.
9. Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
10. Write stuff that people want to read and share.

Posted by Seth Godin on June 03, 2006 | Permalink

Read the full post here: sethgodin.typepad.com

“Publishers can complain and wistfully wish for the good old days of blog links and Google juice, or they can adapt to the new reality Twitter represents. Getting your content “ReTweeted” on Twitter (i.e. getting people to repeat what you’ve said, usually along with a link) can drive significant quality traffic to your site, which in turn can boost your subscriber numbers… So, how does ReTweeting happen, anyway? Well, here are the 5 factors you need to take into account when trying to get your content to spread virally on Twitter”:

1. Call to Action
2. Timing
3. Links
4. Social Proof
5. Value

Read the post at Copyblogger.