It seems like years ago now that I moved into my own apartment and started looking at cable and Internet options. In actuality it was only two months ago. When I discovered that Verizon Fios was available in my location, I automatically went online to activate an account and schedule an installation. I wanted the fastest Internet possible!

The online activation was simple and easy to use. In about five minutes I put in my information and scheduled a date. One second later I got what I thought was a confirmation email. The email lacked any sort of number or code however. I called customer service to alert them about my order and their neglect on confirmation numbers. The customer service rep explained that sometimes ‘the system‘ takes 24 hrs to send a number and I might get the email tomorrow. I hate phone calls like this.

These sort of phone calls continued for a few weeks and I started to get really upset. I had to steal crappy internet at home and it was not fun! So I started expressing my Fios related sorrows on Twitter. Within a few minutes, I received a DM from the Fios twitter guy. Finally! We talked for a bit on Twitter (see pictures) and I got a call from a few new Fios people who helped me and got my Fios installed on A Sunday morning. Now I have the fastest internet evar!

The morale of the story is that if this Verizon Fios employee was not monitoring Twitter for brand mentions, my anger would have left me to some serious brand bashing. Instead of writing this nice blog post that includes a link to the Verizon Fios site.. I would have posted a negative blog post, continued to tweet about how awful they were, and possibly participated in forum bashing. Not that I have a huge voice but I’m louder than just a regular chick, because I’m and SEO chick!!

If there was one thing most semi-literate, half-awake people always liked about Facebook, it was the clean air and the tidy sidewalks. You knew that you could let your kids out after six and their bikes wouldn’t get stolen. The city council was pretty strict about how you couldn’t park your nasty, rotting car in the drive, and any graffiti was always dealt with in a timely manner. There were no closed buildings with boarded up windows and most people respected each other’s property, aside from the odd character-art wall post. Lately, Facebook has changed and I’m not willing the blame the Developers’ Platform and Applications entirely. Just this week, I went to write on a friend’s wall, and I saw this:

What. The Hell. Is that. Ringtones? In a Facebook wall post? If you’ve ever laid eyes on a profile that includes the Super Wall, Fun Wall, Advanced Wall or any other sort of non-conformist, MySpacey bulletin board, you’ll have seen this crap:

However, the entry on my friend’s wall was not posted via an externally-developed application, most of which specialise in the distribution of idiotic pictures. The ghastly ringtone advertisement - which signifies so much more than just an annoying piece of spam - was left on a Facebook mainstay that has been fiercely protected from abuse. A few days later, I came across another spammy entry on a regular Facebook wall.

These posts have all the hallmarks of automated spam and none of the traits of copied-and-pasted messages. The terrible grammar. The inconsistent punctuation and bad spelling. The use of the number zero in place of “o.” A redirected URL that ends up at the vomit-inducing Sleektones.net. No link for you, not even with a nofollow. These messages were also “posted by” twenty-one year old college students, and although there are problems with the U.S. education system, I find it hard to believe that anyone who’d made it past the third grade would believe “free” was actually two words.

If I’d seen this on a SuperAdvancedFun Wall, I would not have looked twice. Those applications seem to have been developed and spread for and by people who miss the gaudiness of MySpace. However, Facebook has held on to early adopters and utter snobs like me by maintaining its initial structure and dignity in the face of mass development. Despite the main structural changes in layout, I can hold on to the clean, tidy profile I liked so much three years ago. They’ve done especially well in this regard.

That’s what keeps people like me around, and whilst it would take many more fails on Facebook’s behalf until I left it, I fear the day my wall falls victim to ringtone ads. I’m not bothered by the copied and pasted wall art: Although I delete any images like the one below, they are a far cry from automated annoyances.

On Facebook’s potential-laden yet neglected blog, Paul Jeffries recently wrote about application spam and what Facebook is doing to combat the problem. However, letting in the masses and having them create applications has allowed a slew of undesirable things to infiltrate a once-pristine community. Jeffries’ blog post addresses applications that require a user to invite friends to also use it before they’re granted access.

I’d go as far as regulating how pushy applications can be in requiring (tricking?) people into adding them to their accounts. Clicking on any one of the applications’ links in the image below brings up the application’s Add page. Whilst I agree that “Forward” and “Write on [blank's] Wall” should require a user to add the application, the “click here to read full post” link is just trickery. I’m also fairly sure that there is no full post.

How should Facebook go about achieving the balance between pleasing its users who like its tight regulations, and catering to the people who want to forward yellow smiley-faces and messages about how the name of one’s crush will appear on the screen if they re-post this message twenty times in the next eight minutes?

I don’t know what exactly is going on with the ringtone spam and various other questionable messages I’ve seen posted on Facebook walls but neglected to capture. I did, however, feel a touch of sadness when I saw those messages, as if I’d learned that yet another nice area of town had gone to ruin. Have spammers and phishers finally begun the slow take-over of Facebook, as they did MySpace?

No, I don’t have to add the applications I find annoying, but after seeing spam creep onto Facebook’s regular wall and after being nearly tricked by other sneaky applications, I believe Facebook should consider tightening up their community before housing prices drop even further and people consider finding out what AOL plans to do with Bebo.

Not another blog post about Mixx!! Haven’t we established that it is just a waste of time? That is what some well respected folks are saying. Yet people are still mixxing away, the numbers all around are going up slowly but surely. But it still has not killed Digg, like it was promised to do.

But watch out… these new features are pretty intimidating!

Today I logged into Mixx, and I had 4 new messages!!

You now have the ability to send messages to fellow Mixxers, showing their user name and avatar, and the option to send to all. Even send a message to entire groups. You can opt-in and out of e-mail notifications, and conversation threads. I have already seen a lot of “Woo-Hoo’s” and “This is so much better than Digg” threads. But many people are foreseeing this function abused.

What do I love about Mixx you ask?

• The ability to reach the right target.
• Posting to groups with interested eyes.
• The Mixx staff is helpful and actually listens to feedback.
• My peers use it and talk about it.

Why should you use Mixx?

• To be a conversation starter.
• To have yet another tool to spread your personality around to your peers.
• To research an audience.
• You can invest 5 minutes on Mixx instead of pointlessly Tweeting.
• You will be ready and ahead of the crowd if Mixx does end up being the big, bad Digg Killer.
• Super smart chick blogger, Tamar, is the new podcaster at the Mixxingbowl.com and if she is talking about it, it must be cool!

Are you better off avoiding it and chalking it up to just another social news site? Sure, why not?

If Social News is not your forte chances are you can get much more work done by avoiding it all together . But in my opinion it is important to know how these sites work whether you are utilizing it or not.

Since writing a few blog posts about the benefits of using Facebook for marketing, I have been asked; “Well, how do you do it?” There are no secrets to using Facebook, unless you are running illegal scripts. Depending on the reasons and types of markets you might be dealing with on Facebook, it’s really quite simple to utilize the social network as a marketing tool.

“Don’t hate on Facebook.” Give it a chance before you decide to curse it to hell as an annoying social site that is a waste of time. If you STILL aren’t using Facebook for yourself, you won’t be able to understand how to use it for anyone else.

Create your “internet marketer” profile. I prefer when people give it their own personal touch. Add some (and only some) albums of cool pictures for me to see what you are like. Myself among many others are dying to judge you. This sounds a lot worse than it actually is.

By now, you probably already know over 100 people on Facebook. Whether they are your actually friends, or authors of the blogs you read. The #1 Simple Step of Social Media Success is to connect with these people, according to Chris Winfield. Facebook makes it really easy for you, and separates these people into networks, and clubs. You already know who you should be conversing with. In most cases, networking professionals will accept your friend request.

Some of these people, you might not have gotten a chance to talk to at the latest convention and now you are looking at mobile uploads of their children. This really is a wonderful tool.

Here are 10 reasons why you should STILL be using Facebook as a Marketing Professional:

1. Join all the groups that relate to you & add connections: Start conversations with people you look up to in the industry. Possibly gain a friend request or two hundred.
2. Promote your blog or other blogs you are promoting on your profile, using BlogFriends. You spent hours perfecting the perfect blog post, now everyone knows.
3. Draw attention to yourself quickly: Upload a new album, post a note, poke people (occasionally), comment on everyone’s stuff. Being popular on Facebook can easily transfer over to real life.
4. Set up real life connections: Introduce yourself to your Facebook friends. Start a relationship. These people are also voters on Social News sites, and blog writers, and good people to know.
5. Research information for clients & Gain Knowledge: Dive head first into groups and read what people are saying about your clients. Excellent for those who are practicing Reputation Management. Read forums, participate, research, and get to work!
6. Network before big events: With SMX West coming up, there are tons of groups to join. See who will be there. Set up a meeting with these people by sending them a message on Facebook, or just simply join the group so people will know you will be there as well. Look at their profile, if they have recent news, you will have a conversation starter at the convention.
7. Update your Status: I hate to say it but those people who tie in their Twitter with their Facebook status are super helpful. If you become a regular status updater, people will always take interest in whatever your doing. It’s like reality TV. *Congratulations to Glen Allsopp who just PASSED HIS DRIVING TEST! 38m ago*
8. Applications Help: It’s true that many applications are annoying. But the Stumble Upon application is awesome! It shows on your profile and news feed what you are Stumbling, so this way everyone else knows, and will also stumble if they are interested.
9. Facebook is Improving: The ever changing controls are sometimes annoying but helpful. You can edit your preferences in the news feeds and see what you want to see. You can also control what people see about you with privacy and security settings.
10. Facebook Profiles Rank- If clients are looking you up, they might like the fact that your profile comes up (but they might not). In this case, it works the same as LinkedIn. So make sure to keep it as Professional as the business you run. *For example: While hiring, I did a search and found a possible employee Facebook page and lets just say they weren’t hired based on the profile picture alone. This could have totally worked in their favor, if I saw a nice clean page with nice comments from Coworkers, friends, a link to their blog, etc.

So… Why Not? It’s totally up to you how you want to use it. If you choose not to use Facebook, then don’t. If you just want to use to it watch what everyone else is doing, that is fine too. You don’t have to add every application, or give drinks to your Top Friends. You can totally make what you want of it.
I hope that this post helps people who are still “Hating” and helps them find success with Facebook conversations, like I have in many ways.

If you have any other reasons or ideas why Marketing Professionals should STILL be using Facebook, please let me know!

I just signed up on Twitter and boy are my arms tired. Wait…that isn’t right. OK I did just sign up on Twitter and even tweeted once but so far, I’m not feeling it. What on earth is the draw here? Am I missing something? I even asked young Steph to help enlighten me, since she’s hip on social media and I now view her as the voice of a generation that’s a generation younger than I am, damn her. I also read several articles about how to use Twitter to my advantage, but still…nothing is really clicking.

Admittedly, I haven’t given it much time. I hated Facebook initially but now I am addicted. Twitter, however, just seems to be designed to flood other people with irrelevant information that they have to wade through in order to find the pearls. That’s time I could spend sleeping or poking Lisa on Facebook (or working.) I’m not alone in my dislike of Twitter, either, as it’s apparently cool to hate it. Well, I am nothing if not cool. Witness my recent purchase of black and orange Adidas and Yo La Tengo concert attendances. Ahem. Note that I am too cool to link to any of this, lest the crowd follow and I become even more passe.

Still, several people that I quite respect are indeed using Twitter. To me, this is an indication that I’m simply too stupid/old/misanthropic to figure out how to use it. I mean, Liana Evans twitters! There are few people in this industry that I have more respect for…and considering the inanities that I list in my Facebook status updates, it’s hard to imagine WHY I can’t warm up to Twitter. It seems perfectly suited for that honestly. Why is it that I feel ok telling my Facebook friends that I am afraid of marmite, yet I think doing this on Twitter would make me a lesser human being? Just ask anyone whom I converse with on IM…I will not hesitate to bore someone to death with the minutiae of my life. I mean seriously, I have conversations with people about what they’re going to have for dinner and how windy it is outside. I’m about to fall asleep just thinking about that.

Apparently one way of using Twitter professionally is to provide quick and constant updates to a group, such as your employees when you’re trying to get across town to a meeting where they’re all sitting down at the conference table, talking smack about you. I found a good Lifehack article that lists 5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good, but the only one listed that would be of any real interest to me is the one entitled “Micro-Attention-Sharing” which is actually quite nice, as it allows me to see which new blog posts my friends have written. Also, I would definitely describe my attention span as being of the “micro” variety.

So I’m now at 20% interest. That’s not a lot.

Then I found the article The Top 5 Ways Smart People Use Twitter. None of the methods suggested truly floated my boat, making me feel non-smart but I did find it interesting to note this quote: “It’s much easier for me to get ideas for story posts by looking at a microblogger’s Twitter feed than by trudging into my Bloglines account. Good-bye RSS feed reader!” I do spend a lot of time on my feed reader, as I have tons of feeds that I need to keep up with so I can know what Matt Cutts’ cat is up to AND, like most bloggers, I do occasionally encounter a dry spell when it comes to ideas about which to write. If you’ve read my last few posts, Facebook status updates, or IMs, you’ll agree that I could stand to get some damn new ideas. So theoretically, THIS could be a Twitter use for me, IF I could be arsed to figure out how exactly to do this. So now I’m at 40%.

THEN I found the article http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/03/15/eight-ways-twitter-is-useful-professionally/
Eight Ways Twitter is Useful Professionally. I immediately laughed at the number one suggestion, which is to “Make existing professional relationships stronger and more intimate.” I can tell you right now, twittering about how I’m watching Dragonslayer and eating nachos on the couch isn’t going to do anything but get my ass fired. Number eight, though, is beautiful and represents all that I could ever hope for in any product: “Learn important news. I’m much less dependent on my newsreader now because I hear about cool stuff all day via Twitter. For example: I didn’t know that Starbucks was giving away free coffee today until I read it on Twitter.” I can assure you that if Twitter alerted me to some free coffee, I’d print this blog post out and physically eat it. First I’ll have to figure out how to get the alerts though, won’t I? Damn it. So I’ll go up 25% for the laughter from item one and the hope from item eight, bringing me up to a glowing 65% interest.

Well in writing this post, it does appear that I have actually found some credible uses for Twitter…still, if you’re using Twitter in any remotely professional manner, please let me know because I’m still mostly unconvinced that it can benefit me in any manner. Of course, I said the same thing about the giant television Jay bought but once I saw The Equalizer throw someone against the wall with his leather-gloved muscular arms (the old hottie!), I was singing its praises. Like James Bond and Romeo Void said, never say never!

If anybody remembers the IMNY Charity Party last year, it was a great place to network.

It was also my very first networking event in the industry and it is also where I met a very friendly Brian Wallace, President of NowSourcing. He is the writer of the NowSourcing blog, which is the place to be if you are interested in learning more about Digg, Mixx, Twitter, etc.

Brian also founded a new blog that is making a lot of noise: Collective-Thoughts, the collective Social Media blog who’s contributors are impressive to say the least. Brian rounded up some of my most favorite SMM people on the net; Andy Beard, Glen Allsopp, Mark Laymon, Marty Weintraub, Rose Sylvia, Shana Albert (who I nominate to make a guest appearance on the SEO-Chicks blog), Tadeusz Szewczyk (onReact), Tim Nash, and then there is Brian’s cat who is quite popular on Twitter.

Brian is really on top of his Social Media game! I often catch him online at 2:00 AM, Sphinning, Digging, and other things that can easily turn into verbs. So I asked him to share some of his expertise with me!

1. You are very active in the blogosphere. How long have you been blogging? And when did you learn that blogging became crucial to your social media status?

I’ve been blogging off and on since 2001. Blogging is an inherent factor in social media success since social media needs content to thrive. Think about it: if you post once a week, that’s 52 pieces of content. It looked to me the blogging and social media would be a huge driver about a year ago.

2. Often we see many posts about falling victim to Social Media time consumption. How often do you spend on Social Media per day?

More than I’d like to admit some days. However, I try to lead a balanced schedule, and fit social media in when time will allow. Social media can really lead to burnout, so everyone should be careful of this.

3. Why is everyone so crazy about twitter? Can it be used as a Marketing tool, or is it just social noise?

People are crazy about Twitter since it has been gaining adoption with a larger audience. A tool is only as good as its adoption. So if you look at the rise in the number of users, average time spent per user, and the number of mashup applications being developed, things start to make sense.

Regarding the noise factor: if you find specific individuals to be too noisy for your tastes, you can simply just stop following them. Some users create a company Twitter account while others keep their more personal Tweets (gosh, personal Tweets should be an oxymoron) over on their own name. Businesses can and should leverage Twitter, but as always, try to understand the community before you potentially damage your brand.

4. Digg has been retiring top diggers left and right with no remorse. Some people say Digg is cleaning itself up to get ready to be sold…What do you predict for the future of Digg? And how will it reflect on its top Diggers?

I think a better word for “retiring” would be “banning” . Many top Diggers, banned or not, are getting a bit fed up with the state of Digg these days.

My prediction is for Digg to be sold within the year, and some of the top Diggers will bail from Digg and go out to other social sites. Mixx in particular has become a Banned Digger magnet. This isn’t to say that all influential Diggers will leave, but it will likely change the landscape.

5. You launched the Social Media Ninjas Contest not too long ago… Is it really all just a popularity contest?

Much of social media is a popularity contest. Seriously though, we are about to announce the final winners, so stay tuned!

6. Everyone tries to have the most recognizable avatar. It seems like it’s all been done before. If you had to create a new avatar for yourself today, how would it look?

I’m pretty fond of the big green N, and it is recognizable. Sometimes people put too much thought into their avatar and make it too detailed and complex. Nearly all sites keep your avatar at 120×120 or less, so think about sizing issues.

If I had to make a new avatar today, I’d be sure to make something creative, colorful, and memorable – and pass it out to a few friends for feedback.

7. Feed readers are as important as breakfast nowadays, skip it in the morning and your whole day is thrown off. It is sometimes hard to find good Social Media Bloggers who share really great tips, without reading the same thing over and over and wasting time. Can you recommend a few Social Media bloggers who have changed the way you do things?

Not particularly fond of RSS, as I prefer to really get the feel for the post and the community by visiting the site directly. That being said, it is difficult through all the noise and regurgitation to see which social media bloggers are truly worth watching. Folks that truly have a unique voice that have had my attention recently are: Lyndon, Copyblogger.com, CopyBrighter, Glen (viperchill.com), Tim, and Shana (socialdesire.com). They all talk about different things that hold my interest.
However, Kathy Sierra’s blog headrush.typepad.com is probably the best of anything like this, but unfortunately she may never be posting again.

8. What is your quick advice for anyone looking to improve their social media campaigns ?

Quick advice: Don’t be stupid. Many people dive head first thinking that if they just submit their own stuff, people will automatically love it. Guess again. Understand your community before submitting a thing. Observe, take notes, ask around.

I want to thank Brian for allowing me to interview him and learn from him. You can add him on all social networks as “nowsourcing”, and I advise that you do! Follow Brian’s advice and maybe you too could be a Social Media Superstar!