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Changing Defaults: Seesmic Desktop To Tweetdeck

// August 6th, 2010 // 5 Comments » // blogging, Social Networks

Last time I talked about changing my default applications, I was comparing Google Chrome with Mozilla Firefox – two of the leading alternative web browsers. Today, I thought I’d look at the differences in the two leading Social Media tools – Seesmic Desktop and Tweetdeck.

I actually started out using Tweetdeck, then moved to Seesmic Desktop, and now, I’m pondering the move back to Tweetdeck. After a week or two of switching between the two, I honestly haven’t picked a favorite. Here’s the factors:

1. Netbook – Seesmic Desktop completely takes over my 1000HE – I am unable to do anything else on the machine while Seesmic Desktop is running, which is a MAJOR issue. I can’t even stream Last.FM without it skipping. With Tweetdeck, I have no problems running additional applications at the same time.

2. System Integration – Seesmic Desktop looks (and seems to act) very much like an OSX app – it’s all silvery-brushed metal, has little bitty minimize/maximize/close buttons, and the layout is just very….Mac. It also doesn’t play well with UltraMon, which is annoying. As explained before, UltraMon puts a little button in the menu bar of windows that makes it really simple to transfer windows between monitors – Seesmic Desktop doesn’t show this button, which is frustrating.

3. Network Support – at the time of this writing, Seesmic Desktop only supports Twitter and Facebook. Meanwhile, Tweetdeck supports Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Google Buzz. While I don’t actively use all of those right now, it’s nice to know I could integrate them into my social media activities easily if I wanted to.

4. Aesthetics – this one’s tough. Seesmic is able to show me more tweets on the screen, which I really like. Tweetdeck seems to allot X number of lines to each update – whether the user uses them or not. This results in PLENTY of blank space, which is annoying. However, Tweetdeck supports color profiles – not only can you change all the colors, you can tweet your settings easily. Thus, you can search to see what others are using. The only thing missing here is the ability to apply someone else’s colors with just one click. Also, Tweetdeck acts like a normal Windows…window, which means it plays nicely with UltraMon.

5. Sync – Tweetdeck synchronizes your columns and accounts across installs – including their mobile clients. While I don’t use Tweetdeck Mobile (it’s only on iPhone/iPad right now), this is a really awesome feature for switching between my Dell XPS M1330 and my Asus 1000HE – all my columns are there. As Tweetdeck releases new mobile clients, it’s reasonable to assume this will work there, too. Seesmic has a web-based client, but it doesn’t seem to synchronize anything across. Note that, annoyingly enough, Tweetdeck only synchronizes your custom columns – making them available on other installs. It doesn’t enable them by default, though hopefully they’ll add this ability in the future.

6. Combining columns – this is one major reason I usually stick with Seesmic Desktop – I can easily have a single ‘Mentions’ column that shows @replies for *all* of my Twitter accounts. I can hobble this together in Tweetdeck, but it misses some, on occasion, and it’s just not the same. Since I’m no longer maintaining the @SymbianGuru twitter account, this isn’t really an issue.

Since I only really manage a single ‘personality’ nowadays, I vastly prefer Tweetdeck. It plays nicely with UltraMon, behaves like a normal Windows application, and has better aesthetics. Which client do you use? Do you use it just for Twitter, or do you also use it to manage Facebook or other social media outlets?

Buying A Car – A Social Media Experiment

// May 13th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Social Networks

As you know, I’m quite into using Social Media for various things – it’s an awesome way to connect with both people and companies. Mrs. Guru and I were recently in the car market – we’ve been borrowing a truck from my dad for several months (while we bought CasaGuru), and have paid a few things off, so we were ready to purchase her a car (so I can have my own truck back!). To see just how well social media works for local business, I posted on both Twitter and Facebook that I was looking to make a purchase, to see how well local businesses use those mediums to connect with me.

It actually didn’t started out so well – I purchased my truck from Jerry’s Weatherford 4 years ago, so I hopped onto their website, and was pleased to see a Twitter icon in the header – I tweeted an @reply to them, to see how well they engaged, but discovered that the twitter account is no longer even there! I can’t help but wonder what happened, and whether they’re looking for a new social media guy….

As I have over 1k followers on my personal account, many of which are in the DFW area, I went ahead and tweeted this (and also cross-posted it to Facebook):

By Thursday (5 days later) and I had yet to get a response on either Twitter or Facebook to either post. It’s fascinating that in this market, with auto sales so competitive, not a single dealership in the Dallas/Fort Worth market apparently has anyone monitoring Twitter to find people who are shopping for cars. I saw another friend on Facebook post that she’s shopping for a car, as well – I wonder if she got any responses from people who could actually help her do so?

After an entire week, I hadn’t received a single response from either Twitter or Facebook. We ended up doing it the old-fashioned way – drove to a couple of dealerships and let my wife wander around till she found something she liked. We test drove a few models, then settled on one.

So, how could area dealerships have made use of Social Media tools like Twitter and Facebook to generate actual, measurable foot traffic to their stores and let their salespeople convert those to sales? Here are a few ways:

1. Have the Internet Sales Manager or Marketing Manager setup the proper accounts – it wouldn’t take much to put together a nice, informative background and Twitter account, as well as a Facebook page for the dealership. Simply having the accounts setup and properly designed is a huge step so that someone searching either Facebook or Twitter would see that the dealership is out there (in addition to boosting search engine results, as more and more search engines look at social networks for ‘real time’ results). Perhaps even hiring a specific person to monitor the dealership’s online brand on a few popular social media sites.

2. Tweet a few ‘hot deals’ each week – you would want to be careful that this doesn’t get spammy, but it wouldn’t hurt to post a Twitter update/Facebook status of the hottest car you have in the lot – might be an awesome price, rare vehicle, or whatever. Anything that might catch someone’s eye. It’s the same thing that dealerships already do with their TV and print ads, only more real-time.

3. Monitor searches – apps such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic, etc are great for updating these accounts and also monitoring search keywords – in my case, if they were searching ‘dfw car dealerships’, they might have found that I’m local and ready to make a purchase – 2 key obstacles for an auto salesperson to overcome. A simple @reply or email would have let me know that they’re out there and willing to help me find what I’m looking for.

That’s just three simple things that any car dealership – large or small – could do to instantly generate more interest and awareness of the used vehicles they have. It’s a shame that none of them are doing this, as it’s such an easy way to increase sales and build those ever-important relationships with consumers.

How To: Get A Single Mentions Column In Tweetdeck

// February 8th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Social Networks

I’ve been a Seesmic Desktop user for as long as I can remember, though I started my Twitter desktop experience switching between Tweetdeck and Twhirl a long time ago. I ended up sticking with Seesmic Desktop when I started maintaining multiple Twitter accounts – I currently manage 4 different accounts, including my personal one. However, there’s a few things I really hate about Seesmic Desktop.

For starters, Seesmic Desktop doesn’t look like a Windows app – it looks like an OS X app that’s installed on my Windows machine. It behaves funny, and things just generally aren’t where I expect them to be. It’s also quite boring, with just a single brushed-metal color scheme and no options to change that.

Tweetdeck, on the other hand, looks and feels like a Windows app, which makes me more comfortable. It also has color schemes so I can tinker a bit here and there, and generally offers far more customization than Seesmic Desktop does.

There is, however, one thing that you can do in Seesmic Desktop that you cannot do in Tweetdeck – have a single ‘mentions’ column for all your accounts. This may not matter to you, but for me, it’s key, and for a long while has been the sole reason I keep using Seesmic Desktop instead of Tweetdeck.

Another drawback to Seesmic Desktop, though, is that it does not run well on netbooks. On my Asus 1000HE (which has 2GB of RAM), I cannot have Seesmic Desktop and Last.FM running at the same time – the music will skip and buffer endlessly. Tweetdeck, fortunately, runs smoothly.

So, how do you get the aforementioned single mentions column in Tweetdeck? By searching, of course.

Tweetdeck allows you to create custom search columns for specific keywords, and it supports the ‘OR” modifier. So, simply create a search column with your various usernames, separated by ‘OR”. Mine is ‘@rcadden OR @symbianguru OR @maemoguru OR @thesymbianguru‘. Done and done.

(@thesymbianguru is a private account that I use to communicate with the other contributors to Symbian-Guru.com. Don’t bother requesting to follow me there, it’ll be ignored. Catch me at @rcadden (personal) or @symbianguru (Symbian-related)

What is your chosen desktop Twitter client? Why do you prefer that one?

Back On The Hunt

// September 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Networks

After a few consulting projects here and there, I’m back on the hunt for exciting opportunities to use my skills. I’m really looking for companies who need my help in setting up an online presence using Social Media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and others. I would also love to join with companies who are already utilizing some of these tools, to help them explore how they can improve the relationships that they are already building.

The most exciting thing about using Social Media tools, in my opinion, is that they actually free you up from being stuck in front of a computer all day. Any cell phone on the market today can access Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or nearly any other social media tool that you’re using, so that you can interact on the go. It’s a fantastic example of technology enriching and enabling our real lives.

Twitter is, by far, one of the most popular tools that companies are using to interact with current and potential customers. Major companies such as Dell and AT&T are employing teams of people to simply monitor Twitter, and directly interact with consumers who are expressing issues with Dell computers or AT&T’s service. These Twitter Teams are able to quickly act to resolve situations, and it seems to be paying off.

I’ve also noticed other companies who simply reach out to say thanks. In the past few months, I’ve tweeted about great experiences with OpenTable.com, Discount Tires, and more, only to quickly receive a ‘thanks’ via Twitter. It’s not much, but it feels great to know that these companies are listening, and more importantly, talking back.

If your company is trying to make sense of all this social media mumbo-jumbo, or if you know someone who is, please do let me know (or point them here). I’d love to chat with them, to see how I can help them work smarter to better engage directly with their current and potential customers.

Is Facebook Getting Dumber?

// June 26th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Social Networks, stupid

I’ve been on Facebook for several years now – back when you had to have a valid college email address to sign up, and even before you could upload pictures and all that jazz. Admittedly, I’ve always been rather averse to the countless games and apps on there, mostly because I have better things to do with my time. I normally don’t judge those folks who do enjoy the apps and games, though. After all, it’s your life, you live it however you want to. However, there is one thing lately that’s just really bothering me.

Check out this screen capture. Do you see that top right corner? Yes, Facebook is informing me of three things here. First, that they’ve checked out my profile, and have a suggestion for me. Second, that suggestion was accepted by 2 of my friends, thus far. Third, that I, too, can become a fan of Hot Pink.

Once you click through, it gets even more stupid. Sure, you can join this….group, and see other people who think Hot Pink is just the bee’s knees. There’s a wall, just like on your own Facebook profile, but usually this is either full of spam, or of pointless stuff like, ‘I won my first basketball game yesterday’.

Perhaps, at 26, I’m simply getting too old for this stuff (only partially kidding), or perhaps I just have better things to do with my time. Surely I’m not the only one who thinks this is the dumbest thing they’ve ever seen? I’ve seen other things you can become a fan of – things like smiles, coffee (tempted to join that one, actually), the sun, peach tea, etc.

Am I missing the point by looking for a purpose for these things?

Wanted: Twitter User Analytics

// May 30th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Social Networks

Twitter’s an awesome tool, and depending on how you choose to use it, you use different tools to manage and maintain it. For my @Symbianguru and other ‘work’ accounts, I often simply re-follow nearly everyone and anyone, so as not to miss anything. However, for my personal @rcadden account, I’m much more picky on who I follow and who I don’t follow.

One thing that I find lacking is the ability to really investigate other users before deciding to follow/unfollow them. Of course I can see their profile, and that makes a big difference already, as I can see if they took the time to design their profile, or fill out various fields. I can also see how many followers they have, or how many people they follow.

However, one thing I can’t see, currently, is a breakdown of their actual USAGE of Twitter. This matters because when I follow them, their updates will show up in my feed, possibly junking it up. Thus, I would like to see a breakdown of their average daily updates, in a few different arenas.

First off, I’d like to see, on average, how many tweets they post per day. Within that, I’d like to know what percentage of their tweets contain a link, or what percentage are retweets of someone else’s tweets. Do they ever re-post the same tweet multiple times throughout the day? To my knowledge, there isn’t any service that currently offers this type of analytics.

Do you know of a service that offers this? If not, do you think this would be a valuable service? I’d like to be able to login once a week (or even get an email) and see who added me this week, as well as the previously mentioned statistics on that person, so that I can manage things better on a week-to-week basis.

5 Ways To Use Twitter To Increase Traffic

// May 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // marketing, Social Networks

Twitter is a powerful tool, but you can waste quite a bit of time there, as well. I’ve been using Twitter to drive traffic to Symbian-Guru.com for several months now, and thought I would share a few of the things that are working well. It’s important to note that simply having a large number of followers does not guarantee your brand will be successful on Twitter. You have to use the tool properly if you want to be able to get a solid return on the investment of time and resources.

Below are five tips that have helped increase traffic from Twitter to Symbian-Guru.com:

1. Build your profile. Just like your site’s homepage is where you make a first impression, your Twitter profile is often a deciding factor when someone is considering clicking on that ‘Follow’ button. Fill it out completely.

2. Feed your blog. There are a number of tools to automate this, but it’s helpful to have your site’s RSS feed coming into your Twitter feed. Readers can more easily get to your site that way, and good posts often get retweeted by your readers, which means more potential visitors.

3. ENGAGE. Set aside a bit of time every day to interact with people on Twitter. Do a few keyword searches, and find people who are asking questions that you can answer. Helping others is one of the best ways to build respect and authority in your field, and will increase the likelihood that they will visit your site to see what else you know.

4. Retweet others in your niche. This is similar to linking to them from your blog – it builds your rapport, and increases the likelihood that they’ll return the favor eventually.

5. Help your readers use Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, that likely means that you think your readers are, too. Regardless of your niche, do a few posts on how they can better use Twitter. If you blog about mobile, show how to use Twitter on their mobiles. If you blog about quilting circles, share how Twitter can help organize the next meet, or get answers to tricky quilting questions. If your readers aren’t using Twitter, then why are you?

While this is clearly not a complete guide, it should get you started. Using these tips and more, traffic from Twitter.com to Symbian-Guru.com has grown 27% over the past 30 days, and ranks in the top 10 sources of traffic for the site. Social media tools such as Twitter can be extremely valuable, if you know how to use them properly. They can also easily be abused, alienating your current or potential customers.

Ricky Cadden is available to help you use Social Media tools such as Twitter to grow your brand by authentically engaging with your current and potential customers as the experience your brand. You can read more about Ricky’s skills here, or contact him at Ricky(at)RickyCadden(dot)com.

BirdBet Keeps Track Of Your Friends’ Lame Bets

// May 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // cool, Social Networks, technology

If you’re a guy (and possibly if you’re a girl), then there’s no denying that you’ve said the words, ‘I’ll bet you $XX…’ to your friends. The XX can be any number, typically lower than 10, whereas the sentence can be completed with any number of options. It could be the result of a sports game, whether or not one party is able to do something specific (finish that beer in 2 minutes, hit a barrel with a rock, etc.). The important thing to know about this phenomenon is that 1. it’s a small, informal bet on a concrete situation and 2. it’s tough to enforce.

BirdBet has just stepped in to reinforce the first problem, and help solve the second. BirdBet combines Twitter with Tipjoy to facilitate these small, yet serious bets among friends more easily. The system is simple. You login with your Twitter account (you don’t have to give BirdBet your login details – they do it all proper), and then send a tweet to your friend, dictating how much you want to bet, followed by what it is that you’re betting on.

A tweet is sent out through your account, calling out your soon-to-be-less-rich friend, so that they’re aware. There’s also a link included, so that each party can track the bet, including when it was made, who extended it, how much, and other extremely important details. Seeing as how several of my friends have….heated discussions…over long-past bets quite frequently, I can easily see how BirdBet is a good idea for them. Unfortunately, none of them are on Twitter, but that’s beside the point.

Micropayment services like Tipjoy are sure to become more and more popular and commonplace, and I’m excited to see new ways to use them, such as BirdBet. It’s a classic case of technology enriching and enabling our real lives, and I absolutely love it. I think it will be wildly popular, don’t you? Wanna bet on it?

Followup To My Facebook Lockdown

// May 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Networks

Several weeks ago, I made the decision to implement a ‘friend rule’ on Facebook, where I disconnected from anyone that I had not personally met in real life at least 2 times. You can read the post here, to get an idea of why I did this. After several weeks of this limited use, I’m honestly not sure what I think about it.

There are some clear benefits, for sure. Most of my online contacts use services such as Ping.FM and others that automatically update both your Facebook and Twitter status at the same time. As such, removing these folks from my Facebook ‘friends’ list has gone a long way to declutter my stalkerfeed (that’s what I like to call it), and bring forth the more meaningful updates from people that I’ve connected with in real life.

Similarly, I’ve noticed a big decrease in the number of silly app invites/requests that I get. No, I don’t want to throw a sheep, be a ninja, or join the mafia. I’m actually surprised at this discovery, as I certainly assumed the ‘unwashed masses’ who are not constantly connected would more easily fall prey to these types of online ‘apps’. It seems the uber-connected among us simply can’t resist.

However, I’ve also noticed a feeling that I’m missing out on some great feature of Facebook. As part of this little experiment, I’ve also restricted my use of ‘fan pages’. This actually turned out nice, because I’ve noticed recently, there is a major influx of random, silly ‘fan pages’, such as becoming a fan of summer, the radio, ice cream, and any other random thing. I don’t know what exactly it is that I would be missing out on, but I can’t help the feeling, anyways, if you know what I mean.

In any case, I believe that I’ve decided to re-assess my Facebook policy. I’m going to be frank about it – if we’re ‘internet friends’, sure, I’ll add you. However, if you start annoying me, I’m going to remove you, and I’m not going to feel bad about it, either. It’s *my* social network, and that means I get to decide who’s in there and who’s not.

This is different than on Twitter, where I’m ‘connected’ with hundreds of folks that I don’t know, and whose updates annoy the crap out of me. However, most of them, I’m connected with for another reason. It might be that once a day, they have a great tweet. It might be that they work somewhere like Nokia, where I’m interested in keeping them on my list, just in case they say something smart/cool/funny/interesting.

I’m going to continue to monitor my Facebook experience, though. Facebook is fascinating to me because it seems as though the default use is to connect with anyone and everyone on there, and to click every link you see, thereby adding countless time-wasting games and whatnot to your ‘profile’. However, I firmly believe that, since it’s *MY* profile, I should exercise some control over what’s on there.

I’m interested to know, how do YOU use Facebook? Do you think I’m being too conservative with my usage, specifically as a Social Media…person?