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	<title>Steffan Antonas &#187; Top Posts</title>
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		<title>Case Study: How To Use Foursquare To Draw A Crowd Into Your Restaurant</title>
		<link>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/case-study-how-to-use-foursquare-to-draw-a-crowd-into-your-restaurant.htm</link>
		<comments>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/case-study-how-to-use-foursquare-to-draw-a-crowd-into-your-restaurant.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:33:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steffan Antonas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business & Entrepreneurship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Top Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foursquare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wisconsin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.steffanantonas.com/?p=1602</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
			
				
			
		
 Restaurant owners are quickly discovering how to use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and Yelp to their advantage and drive customers to their tables, but there&#8217;s a guy in Wisconsin doing it better than almost anyone else.
Joe Sorge, who runs a burger joint in Milwaukee called AJ Bombers, shot me a tweet yesterday [...]<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/case-study-how-to-use-foursquare-to-draw-a-crowd-into-your-restaurant.htm">Case Study: How To Use Foursquare To Draw A Crowd Into Your Restaurant</a></p>
]]></description>
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<p> Restaurant owners are quickly discovering how to use <span class="zem_slink">social media</span> tools like <span class="zem_slink">Twitter</span>, <span class="zem_slink">Facebook</span> and <span class="zem_slink">Yelp</span> to their advantage and drive customers to their tables, but there&#8217;s a guy in Wisconsin doing it better than almost anyone else.</p>
<p>Joe Sorge, who runs a burger joint in Milwaukee called <a id="aptureLink_eiPzQbugnL" href="http://twitter.com/AJBombers">AJ Bombers</a>, shot me a <a id="aptureLink_qg9AKbsVjQ" href="http://twitter.com/AJBombers/status/9874252017">tweet</a> yesterday to tell me about a Foursquare party they had this week that brought a flash mob of <a id="aptureLink_KbaxQRdBri" href="http://twitter.com/AJBombers/status/9879008718">161 Foursquare users</a> to his restaurant.  My eyebrows shot up when I read that number. 161 check ins in one day?! How could that be? There are only about three or four hundred Foursquare users <em>total</em> in Milwaukee?! Over 150 of them were in the same place, on the same afternoon?</p>
<p>When I called him up, Joe explained. They came to earn the highly coveted and elusive Foursquare &#8220;<a id="aptureLink_7Y6yOVwIy2" href="../wp-content/uploads/2010/03/AJbombers-Foursquare.jpg" rel="lightbox[1602]">Swarm Badge</a>&#8221; &#8211; something you can only get when 50 or more Foursquare users check in at the same place at the same time. I hadn&#8217;t heard of it, but apparently the promise of this coveted Foursquare badge can really draw a crowd.<span id="more-1602"></span></p>
<p>Before I launch into my interview where Joe discusses how he did it, here&#8217;s video from the  beginning of the event so you can get an idea of what was going on at the restaurant at the start of the event.</p>
<h3>Video From The AJ Bombers Foursquare Swarm Badge Party</h3>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="480" height="295" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hdZCzE4VUA4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hdZCzE4VUA4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<h3>Flickr Photos from the AJ Bombers Foursquare Swarm Badge Party&#8230;</h3>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tapps/sets/72157623406701183/"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1603" title="flashmob_flickr" src="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/flashmob_flickr.jpg" alt="flashmob_flickr" width="480" height="646" /></a></p>
<h3>Wonder how AJ Bombers did it? Here&#8217;s my interview with Joe&#8230;</h3>
<p><strong><em>Q: What made you to decide to take the leap to try and base an event around the Swarm Foursquare badge? (did you see it done well and replicate? did foursquare come to you? How did you find out about it and decide to go for it?)</em></strong></p>
<p>A: We had been noticing our twitter fan base really getting in to Foursquare lately so I went about investigating the various badges that could be achieved and found the elusive Swarm badge at the bottom of a badge page, awarded for a gathering of 50 or more foursquare users. We thought it was a great idea, so we started searching the web for how the badge worked and got in touch with Foursquare who helped us out.<strong><br />
</strong><em><br />
<strong>Q: How did you organize/coordinate the event with foursquare?</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">A: Total time considered, organizing the event took us about a week. Once I connected with Foursquare, I emailed back a forth with them about logistics and asked some specific questions about how the badge was awarded and to how many users, etc.   They were TOTALLY on board with the event by the way, even tweeting about it themselves just hours before we were to be <a id="aptureLink_iG6PCwf7TA" href="http://twitter.com/foursquare/status/9788914670">awarded the badge</a><strong><br />
</strong><img class="aligncenter" style="margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 10px;" src="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/AJbombers-Foursquare.jpg" alt="" width="470" height="322" /><br />
<strong><em>Q: How did you get the word out before the event?</em></strong></p>
<p>A: We used twitter primarily, but the main tool was called a Twtvite from the good tweeps at TwApps. Here&#8217;s the <a id="aptureLink_4JmTSLbjGc" href="http://twtvite.com/2se37i">Twitvite</a> we sent out. We cross promoted the event as a fundraiser for Milewake SWSX.  As we got closer to the event the invite spread out on social networking sites like Facebook as well. We had almost 100 people sign up beforehand, and over 100 people Tweeted about it. By 1:30pm, before the event was supposed to start, the restaurant was already packed with people.</p>
<p>At almost 3pm on the dot, people on the inside of the restaurant all got notification at the same time from Foursquare that they had earned the Swarm badge and they all started Tweeting about it. There was a lot of energy in the room at that moment that I wish we could have captured on video. There was so much word of mouth happening when people started telling their friends on Twitter that they&#8217;d gotten the badge. New comers were earning the badge for over 3 hours, right up until 6:20pm. Even 56 users who&#8217;d never used Foursquare signed up and checked in just to get the badge.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/twitvite.jpg" rel="lightbox[1602]"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1648" style="border: 5px solid #EEEEEE; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;" title="twitvite" src="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/twitvite.jpg" alt="twitvite" width="470" height="422" /></a></p>
<p><em><strong>Q: Did you have any anxiety/legitimate concerns that it wasn&#8217;t going to work before the day of? (if so, what were they)</strong></em></p>
<p>A: Absolutely I was concerned that we couldn’t get to the number needed all at once. <a class="zem_slink" title="Foursquare" rel="homepage" href="http://www.foursquare.com">FourSquare</a> assured that the network would be there for us, and it was!</p>
<p><em><strong>Q: Just one more thing, got any tips for managing the mob when they show up?</strong></em></p>
<p>A: Eat, Drink and Check-in!</p>
<p><strong><em>Q: What sense did you get that people really wanted out of the event? To meet others? Were they there just for the badge? How many of them knew each other already (i.e. did they come in groups, or were they all individuals who came alone)</em></strong></p>
<p>A: This event, like nearly every Social Media event that we do was and is all about community and building something, or in this case earning something together.  We are, after all, a restaurant built by twitter and now made even more fun by foursquare.</p>
<p>So there you have it, right from the horse&#8217;s mouth. I hope this confirms for any nay-sayers out there that social media can work for you. If you have any questions for Joe, let&#8217;s discuss them here in the comments.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/swarmbadgeajbomberssearch.jpg" rel="lightbox[1602]"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1642" title="swarmbadgeajbomberssearch" src="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/swarmbadgeajbomberssearch.jpg" alt="swarmbadgeajbomberssearch" width="470" height="1264" /></a></p>
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<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/case-study-how-to-use-foursquare-to-draw-a-crowd-into-your-restaurant.htm">Case Study: How To Use Foursquare To Draw A Crowd Into Your Restaurant</a></p>
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		<title>Focusing On Value: How I&#8217;m Changing How I Use Twitter</title>
		<link>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/focusing-on-value-how-im-changing-how-i-use-twitter.htm</link>
		<comments>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/focusing-on-value-how-im-changing-how-i-use-twitter.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steffan Antonas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Top Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Strategy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.steffanantonas.com/?p=1094</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[

			
				
			
		
This weekend I made the decision to switch things up and reboot my Twitter following list. On Sunday night, with a little help from Jesse over at SocialToo, I ran a script that unfollowed almost 12,000 people. This week, for the first time since the summer of 2007, I&#8217;m back to following just over 200.
In [...]<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/focusing-on-value-how-im-changing-how-i-use-twitter.htm">Focusing On Value: How I&#8217;m Changing How I Use Twitter</a></p>
]]></description>
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<p></code>This weekend I made the decision to switch things up and reboot my Twitter following list. On Sunday night, with a little help from <a id="aptureLink_zRITQBOkNT" href="http://twitter.com/jesse">Jesse</a> over at <a href="http://socialtoo.com" target="_blank">SocialToo</a>, I ran a script that unfollowed almost 12,000 people. This week, for the first time since the summer of 2007, I&#8217;m back to following just over 200.</p>
<p>In this post I&#8217;ll discuss why I decided to reboot my list and how I&#8217;m planning on changing my approach to using Twitter moving forward. I&#8217;ll also show you some data, bust a few social media myths and tell you a few things that those &#8220;social media gurus&#8221; with large Twitter followings  don&#8217;t want you to know. Ready to rock and roll?  Buckle up&#8230; <span id="more-1094"></span></p>
<h3>The Big Realization: The Strategy That Got Me Here Doesn&#8217;t Work Anymore</h3>
<p>When I started using Twitter back in 2007, it wasn&#8217;t popular or mainstream the way it is now, and the culture was different. Only the geeks were using it, and the overall experience was more personal, conversational and fun. The newness<em> </em>of the 140 character medium and the cool factor of connecting directly with fellow bloggers and friends on the go was awesome (remember, up until then most of us were just commenting on each other&#8217;s blogs).</p>
<p>Then, in early 2008, <a id="aptureLink_NTjSG0UdEf" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging">microblogging</a> started getting popular in the blogosphere and Twitter in particular started to drive significant blog traffic (If you like data, Fred Wilson has a great <a id="aptureLink_uBN6ELLIOX" href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/03/where-my-traffi.html">post</a> about when he noticed it happening on his blog where he shares his traffic stats). A huge cultural shift was taking place &#8211; people started blogging less and began abandoning their RSS readers for social media tools like Twitter that had a more interactive, real-time experience. Not only was it more fun and personal, the realization bloggers were having about the power of social media was causing Twitter to spread rapidly throughout the blogosphere. By October 2008, so many people were using social media as a replacement for their blogs, <a id="aptureLink_wdLMBXpZqX" href="http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-11/st_essay">Wired Magazine declared that Blogging was Dead</a>.</p>
<p>Around that time reciprocating when someone followed you on Twitter was becoming a common &#8220;friending&#8221; practice, and many (including me) thought it was a good way to be social and successful on Twitter. I thought this for a couple of reasons. First, there was the DM problem &#8212; you can&#8217;t direct message (DM) someone who isn&#8217;t following you, which people hated. Second, reciprocity (in theory) encourages engagement by signaling mutual interest. So for many of us, following-back was the social thing to do, and automated scripts made it hassle-free. Sure, your home feed became a rushing river of tweets, but you could direct message others, nobody felt snubbed, and your following number went up and <em>kept going up</em>. It was a clear win-win scenario.</p>
<p>Back then the strategy of mutual following was working well for me. The number of connections I was making was growing steadily, I was interacting a lot with excited bloggers and geeks like me, and I was getting a lot of traffic coming to my blog from Twitter. Around that time I was mutually following a few thousand people and I had started using Tweetdeck to keep up with friends and fellow bloggers I wanted to follow closely. Engagement was high and people were jazzed.</p>
<p>Then in spring 2009 the celebrities arrived and Twitter&#8217;s growth exploded. The marketers and spammers, who started getting their hands on automated following tools like <a href="http://hummingbird2.com/hummingbird/" target="_blank">Hummingbird</a> and <a href="http://tweetadder.com/" target="_blank">TweetAdder</a>, started flooding the ecosystem with garbage. When people saw others quickly amass huge followings, the popularity contest took on a life of its own. My &#8220;reciprocity strategy&#8221; turned into a double edged sword. In March/Arpil my follower numbers started shooting up, but so did the spam. Twitter&#8217;s traffic at this point was <a href="http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_releases/2009/4/Twitter_Traffic_More_than_Doubles/%28language%29/eng-US" target="_blank">growing exponentially</a> (graph below is from Comscore) and my follower count followed suit.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1111" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;" title="twittergrowthcomscore" src="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/twittergrowthcomscore.jpg" alt="twittergrowthcomscore" width="480" height="263" /></p>
<p>By late spring, I was convinced that following everyone that followed me was the way to go. The data I was tracking showed that the strategy worked well. The click through rates on the links I was posting were growing proportionately with my follower growth,  I was engaging lots of people and the amount of spam I got was small and manageable, so I stuck with it.</p>
<p>Of course, 10,000 followers and 6 months later, I&#8217;ve changed my tune. Twitter is not nearly as personal or conversational as it used to be, and I&#8217;ve crossed my own personal scalability limit for maintaining relationships. What&#8217;s more, the traffic my blog gets from Twitter plateaued a long time ago, and the spam is unbearable.</p>
<p>Last Friday, over tacos and beer in downtown San Diego, <a id="aptureLink_qXLZwWVxCr" href="http://twitter.com/nateritter">Nate Ritter</a> and I had a <a id="aptureLink_VRGUIjXdVN" href="http://blog.perfectspace.com/2009/10/13/follow-friday-unfollow-tuesday/">long entertaining discussion</a> about how significantly Twitter&#8217;s ecosystem has changed this year and how we were seeing the click through numbers drop off despite &#8217;social media gurus&#8217; singing Twitter&#8217;s praises. We shared our experiences and data. We talked about what was still working for us. We agreed that the real value was still in focusing on building relationships, and reminded each other how social media done right accelerates serendipity.  By the time dinner was over, we knew it was time to change our approach and reboot. And that&#8217;s exactly what I did.</p>
<p>Here are the nuts and bolts of the conversation Nate and I had&#8230;</p>
<h3>Everyone&#8217;s Broadcasting, No One&#8217;s Listening</h3>
<p>Testing how many people click through a link posted to Twitter is the best measurement we&#8217;ve got on how many people are actually listening to you and consuming the content you post.  I&#8217;ve been watching the click through data and reading studies about this for months.  It turns out that the data tells a very clear, consistent story &#8211; everyone is broadcasting, and only a tiny percentage of people are paying attention and clicking through.</p>
<p>Back in July 2009, <a id="aptureLink_sTSvL3BXlj" href="http://twitter.com/dbarefoot">Darren Barefoot</a> (co-founder of Capulet Communications) published the findings of a study he did on Mashable on <a id="aptureLink_S4bsQmvQxR" href="http://mashable.com/2009/07/07/twitter-clickthrough-rate/">Twitter click through rates</a> &#8211; he admits that he&#8217;s not a statistician, and his method was basic (using bit.ly link tracking) but this was the first study to be published on a major social media hub of its kind (to my knowledge). The study, done across 60 different Twitter users, indicated that the average Twitter user gets a click through rate of 1-2%, and showed that <em>click through rate, as a percentage of followers, decreases as the person&#8217;s follower base increases </em>(i.e the more followers you have, the smaller percentage of them click through). I got intrigued.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve done a lot of bit.ly analysis on all types of users in the last 6 months, from celebrities and social media big shots like <a href="http://twitter.com/aplusk" target="_blank">Ashton Kutcher</a> and <a id="aptureLink_iUKBWUbXuO" href="http://twitter.com/chrisbrogan">Chris Brogan</a>, to your average Joe Twitterer. The data I&#8217;ve seen is consistent with Darren&#8217;s study. In fact, as far as I can tell, <strong>the percentage of anyone&#8217;s followers that actually click through on links is almost always below 1%</strong>.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s a screenshot of data from a link Ashton posted from this morning, 3 hours ago. He&#8217;s approaching 4 million followers and this link got less than 3000 clicks (including retweets). I&#8217;m not saying that every link he posts gets that few clicks, but I&#8217;ve done this analysis on many of his links and I&#8217;ve never seen a CTR greater than 0.7%.  Ditto for any of the big names out there with +50K followers. <strong>The CTR numbers are consistent across all types of users.</strong></p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1133" title="ctr" src="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ctr.jpg" alt="ctr" width="480" height="513" /></p>
<p>I track data for all the links that I post, and even with almost 13K followers, on average I get 30-50 clicks on a link  (not including retweets). Also, <a id="aptureLink_PQLfdrLM0s" href="http://twitter.com/jesse">Jesse</a> from SocialToo <a id="aptureLink_X3txRj62ca" href="http://staynalive.com/articles/2009/09/30/the-you-the-me-and-the-we-how-im-changing-how-i-use-twitter/">recently posted on his blog</a> that he was getting almost an identical CTR on his links coming from his 25K followers. These numbers are not what most people expect, but data doesn&#8217;t lie &#8211; this is the reality of Twitter. What&#8217;s interesting is that it implies that even experts and celebrities aren&#8217;t getting higher percentages than Joe Twitterer, <strong>so if your goal is to drive traffic (be influential) by treating everyone like a school of fish, you have to amass a HUGE following to drive significantly higher clicks per link posted. </strong></p>
<h3>Superficial Reciprocation Doesn&#8217;t Build Relationships</h3>
<p>As I said before, reciprocating when someone follows you on Twitter is a common &#8220;friending&#8221; practice, and many (including me) thought it was a good way to be social and successful on Twitter in the beginning. I used to assume that following people back would encourage the ones who were interested in following me and reading my blog to interact with me and strike up conversation. I was wrong. Over the last 6 months I&#8217;ve auto-followed back thousands of people and reached out to many of them, and the core group of people that I have repeated conversations with and who spend the time to comment on my blog are still the same people I was going out of my way to keep up with and talk to in the first place. Lesson learned. If people are genuinely interested in you and your content, they will make the effort to start a relationship with you. Likewise, these are the people I&#8217;m going to focus on helping and developing relationships with from now on.</p>
<h3>The &#8220;So We Can DM&#8221; Argument Doesn&#8217;t Fly Anymore</h3>
<p>I&#8217;ve heard (and used) the &#8220;I&#8217;m following back so that people can DM me&#8221; excuse. True, twitter&#8217;s conversation model stinks, and early on in Twitter&#8217;s past a lot of people thought that giving others the ability to DM you was the social thing to do. Over time, though, I&#8217;ve found the only people who ever DM me are my friends (who I&#8217;d be following anyway) and spammers. And guess what&#8230;the spammers out number my friends 50 to 1, making the DM feature annoying and virtually useless. There are tons of ways to reach me or get my attention &#8211; send me email, send me an @ message, join in the discussion on my blog &#8211; I pay really close attention to all that stuff. If you do any of that, guess what&#8230;I&#8217;ll probably follow you on Twitter!  Fair? I think so.</p>
<h3>Forget The Numbers Game, Focus on Relationships</h3>
<p>If all you want is a large number of followers to feed your ego (and, believe me, it WILL impress people who don&#8217;t know any better) by all means, turn that auto-follow script on and leave it on. As long as you&#8217;re posting interesting content regularly, your numbers will definitely go up and keep going up. If you want to be really hardcore about it, go out and look for people with 1:1 friends/followers ratio and add them to your list so that they add you back and your numbers go up faster. It works, everyone knows that. There are tons of people out there successfully gaming twitter this way &#8211; there are web rings where you can pay for followers, Twitter trains where you can &#8220;follow and be followed&#8221;, lists of people who auto-follow back and programs like Hummingbird and TweetAdder that allow you to automate following and unfollowing that have allowed many marketers and spammers to accumulate massive (+50K) following lists. But consider this&#8230;</p>
<p>You know what happened<strong> when I ran the unfollow-all script this week? 3000 people auto-unfollowed me immediately &#8211; literally over 20% of the users following me weren&#8217;t listening and didn&#8217;t care.</strong> The same thing happened to the following people:</p>
<p><a id="aptureLink_baVwaFZQbm" href="http://twitter.com/jesse">Jesse</a> &#8211; When he <a href="http://staynalive.com/articles/2009/09/30/the-you-the-me-and-the-we-how-im-changing-how-i-use-twitter/" target="_blank">unfollowed 25000</a> followers  6000 accounts unfollowed him (24%)</p>
<p><a id="aptureLink_iNuaw0D5oy" href="http://twitter.com/johnchow">John Chow</a> &#8211; When he <a href="http://www.johnchow.com/why-i-unfollowed-55000-twitter-users/" target="_blank">unfollowed 55000</a> followers 10000 accounts unfollowed him (18%)</p>
<p><a id="aptureLink_RcPVrXByVu" href="http://twitter.com/scobleizer">Robert Scoble</a> &#8211; he <a href="http://scobleizer.com/2009/08/05/you-are-so-unfollowed/" target="_blank">unfollowed 106K</a>&#8230;and around 10-15K accounts unfollowed him. (~10-15%) <em>(Note: This metric was updated per a comment on this post by Robert on 1/3/10 </em>http://bit.ly/5s0rIc)</p>
<p>See a pattern here? These are people (and bots) that are just broadcasting, DMing anyone who&#8217;ll follow them and filling the Twitter ecosystem with self-promotional, pre-programmed, affiliate-marketing crapola. You don&#8217;t need them. They won&#8217;t help you learn, grow, connect with people or achieve your goals. Sure, if you drop those people, they&#8217;ll drop you and you might not have a big number in your TwitterCounter badge on your blog, but how much is that number actually helping you anyway?</p>
<p>Now that you can see how the magic trick is done, do you think it&#8217;s impressive? Me either.</p>
<p>The bottom line is, chasing numbers doesn&#8217;t matter in the long run. It&#8217;s just a waste of time. The only networking that matters is consistently taking an active interest in others, helping people achieve their goals, writing and sharing great content. If you don&#8217;t think this is true, ask yourself this&#8230;If the Twitter servers were shut down today, how many people would come and find you on another service? It&#8217;s sometimes helpful to remind yourself that Twitter has yet to find a viable revenue model&#8230;</p>
<h3>Social Media Isn&#8217;t Scalable. Dunbar&#8217;s Number Still Applies.</h3>
<p>Whenever people asked me the question &#8220;how do you follow 12 thousand people?&#8221; it always made me uncomfortable, because the honest immediate answer is&#8230;&#8221;umm, I don&#8217;t.&#8221; Everyone&#8217;s using a filtering tool to keep up with the people that they want to &#8211; no one who is following more than a few hundred people uses the main feed these days. And yet most people would admit to feeling a rush of excitement when an influencer starts &#8220;following&#8221; them (or, more accurately, adds them to a list they never pay attention to). Social media only gives the <em>illusion</em> of scalability. In reality, we&#8217;re all following much smaller groups of people with filters and tools &#8211; these numbers, in my experience, approximate <a id="aptureLink_z0foKD5UCO" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s%20number">Dunbar&#8217;s number</a>. When anyone has more than a few hundred people in their &#8220;following&#8221; list, you should assume that they&#8217;re not using that list to listen at all.  When I follow someone, I want it to mean something to me AND to them. I want it to say &#8220;I&#8217;m listening&#8221;.</p>
<h3>Twitter Lists Will Change The Game</h3>
<p>OK, this is the part that Im actually excited about &#8211; what&#8217;s coming next. <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/09/30/twitter-lists/" target="_blank">Twitter lists</a>. They&#8217;re currently in beta, but if they are anything like Friendfeed&#8217;s groups, they will significantly change Twitter culture and part of the reason I&#8217;m doing this reboot was so that I could start building useful lists. You&#8217;ll finally be able to follow people in logical groups like &#8220;friends&#8221;, &#8220;family&#8221; or &#8220;coworkers&#8221;. When Twitter introduces this, you&#8217;ll very likely see a few things happen &#8211; first, a new surge of people following others (now that they can separate them out) and definitely an increase in spam. But what you&#8217;ll also likely see is an increased drop off in click throughs and retweets across the ecosystem as Twitter gives people the ability to segment users they follow into small managable groups and get the intimacy back that they&#8217;ve been craving. I&#8217;ve seen this happen in Friendfeed and in Facebook, so I&#8217;m betting that the effect on Twitter will be similar. The good news is that if you&#8217;re actively keeping up with people that matter to you and that add value to your experience, you&#8217;re going to do really well &#8211; you&#8217;ll stay on their radar in one of their small lists. If not, you&#8217;ll stay in the list that they never check and, even though you might look successful to people looking at your numbers, your experience will feel like you&#8217;re shouting in an empty room. How you approach Twitter (and all other social media) going forward is up to you. Are you going to focus on nurturing lasting relationships with a few, or keep broadcasting into the void?</p>
<p>I&#8217;m going with the former.</p>
<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/focusing-on-value-how-im-changing-how-i-use-twitter.htm">Focusing On Value: How I&#8217;m Changing How I Use Twitter</a></p>
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		<title>Interactive World Map Of Social Network Dominance</title>
		<link>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/interactive-world-map-of-social-network-dominance.htm</link>
		<comments>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/interactive-world-map-of-social-network-dominance.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Aug 2009 07:00:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steffan Antonas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Cyberculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Top Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trendspotting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cyberculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Infographics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Statistics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[visualization]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.steffanantonas.com/?p=880</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[


			
				
			
		
Vincenzo Cosenza has mapped the most popular social networks by country, according to traffic data gathered on Alexa &#38; Google Trends (June 2009). While Facebook&#8217;s growing dominance over MySpace in the US and other countries comes as no surprise, it is interesting to see the few smaller networks that most of us have probably never [...]<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/interactive-world-map-of-social-network-dominance.htm">Interactive World Map Of Social Network Dominance</a></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-883" title="worldmapsocialnetdominance" src="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/worldmapsocialnetdominance.jpg" alt="worldmapsocialnetdominance" width="499" height="264" /></h3>
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<p></code>Vincenzo Cosenza has mapped the most <a href="http://www.vincos.it/world-map-of-social-networks/" target="_blank">popular social networks by country</a>, according to traffic data gathered on Alexa &amp; Google Trends (June 2009). While Facebook&#8217;s growing dominance over MySpace in the US and other countries comes as no surprise, it is interesting to see the few smaller networks that most of us have probably never heard of that are country specific. It&#8217;s also important to note that that while Facebook is all the rage in the west, QQ (China) is still by far the largest social network in the world (300 million active accounts). As people continue to focus their time and energy on dominant networks, and the successful networks grow and take over, you&#8217;ll likely see many of these smaller social networks die out. It&#8217;ll be most interesting to see what happens if and when China becomes more open over time. We tend to forget about large networks like QQ and companies like BIDU that dominate the waking giant.</p>
<h3><strong>The Current Snapshot:</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.facebook.com');" href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a></strong> is continues to dominate globe, especially in the west and other english-speaking regions, with more than 200 millions users.</li>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.qq.com/');" href="http://www.qq.com/">QQ</a></strong>, leader in China, is the largest social network of the world (300 millions active accounts)</li>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.myspace.com/');" href="http://www.myspace.com/">MySpace</a></strong> Still leads in Guam</li>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://vkontakte.ru/');" href="http://vkontakte.ru/">V Kontakte</a></strong> Still dominates Russian-speaking territories</li>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.orkut.com/');" href="http://www.orkut.com/">Orkut </a></strong>is strong in India and Brazil</li>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://hi5.com/');" href="http://hi5.com/">Hi5 </a></strong>is still leading in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and other scattered countries such as Portugal, Mongolia, Romania</li>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.odnoklassniki.ru/');" href="http://www.odnoklassniki.ru/">Odnoklassniki </a></strong>is strong in some former territories of the Soviet Union</li>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.maktoob.com/');" href="http://www.maktoob.com/">Maktoob </a></strong>is the most important Arab community/portal</li>
<li><strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.friendster.com/');" href="http://www.friendster.com/">Friendster </a></strong>is still rocking in the Philippines (remember Friendster?)</li>
</ul>
<p><span id="more-880"></span></p>
<h3>Other country specific social networks (that you&#8217;ve probably never heard of)</h3>
<p>- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.iwiw.hu/');" href="http://www.iwiw.hu/">Iwiw </a></strong>in Hungary<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://nasza-klasa.pl/');" href="http://nasza-klasa.pl/">Nasza-klasa</a></strong> in Poland<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.cyworld.com/');" href="http://www.cyworld.com/">Cyworld </a></strong>in South Korea<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://hyves.nl/');" href="http://hyves.nl/">Hyves </a></strong>in Netherlands<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://lide.cz/');" href="http://lide.cz/">Lidé </a></strong>in Czech Republic<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://mixi.jp/');" href="http://mixi.jp/">Mixi </a></strong>in Japan<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://one.lt/');" href="http://one.lt/">One </a></strong>in Lithuania<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://www.draugiem.lv/');" href="http://www.draugiem.lv/">Draugiem </a></strong>in Latvia<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://wretch.cc/');" href="http://wretch.cc/">Wretch </a></strong>in Taiwan<br />
- <strong><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/http://zing.vn/');" href="http://zing.vn/">Zing </a></strong>in Vietnam</p>
<p><code><script src="http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/7c0656cc4fad11deaa3c000255111976/comments/7c1a03ac4fad11deaa3c000255111976.js" type="text/javascript"></script></code></p>
<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/interactive-world-map-of-social-network-dominance.htm">Interactive World Map Of Social Network Dominance</a></p>
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		<title>5 Unmissable TED Talks On The Future Of Technology And The Web</title>
		<link>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/5-unmissable-ted-talks-on-the-future-of-technology-and-the-web.htm</link>
		<comments>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/5-unmissable-ted-talks-on-the-future-of-technology-and-the-web.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:44:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steffan Antonas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Design & Innovation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Top Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trendspotting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Videos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[2010 Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jeff Bezos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kevin Kelly]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Linked Data]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Open Source]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Raymond Kurzweil]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TED]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tim Berners-Lee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World Wide Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yochai Benkler]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.steffanantonas.com/?p=855</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[#1 Tim Berners-Lee On The Next Web of Open, Linked Data


			
				
			
		
20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he&#8217;s building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: Unlock our data and reframe the way we use it [...]<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/5-unmissable-ted-talks-on-the-future-of-technology-and-the-web.htm">5 Unmissable TED Talks On The Future Of Technology And The Web</a></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>#1 Tim Berners-Lee On The Next Web of Open, Linked Data</h3>
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<p></code>20 years ago, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners_Lee" target="_blank">Tim Berners-Lee</a> invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he&#8217;s building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: Unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together. (Recorded  at TED2009, February 2009)</p>
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<h3><span id="altHeadline">#2 </span><span id="altHeadline">Jeff Bezos On The Next Web Innovation</span></h3>
<p>As founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos defined online shopping and rewrote the rules of commerce, ushering in a new era in business. Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1999. The dot-com boom and bust Bezos led is often compared to the Gold Rush. But Jeff says it’s more like the early days of the electric industry.</p>
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<h3><span id="altHeadline">#3 Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web</span></h3>
<p>Kevin Kelly, exec editor at WIRED and founder of visionary nonprofits,  shares a fun stat: The World Wide Web, as we know it, is only 5,000 days old. Now, Kelly asks, how can we predict what&#8217;s coming in the next 5,000 days?</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="446" height="326" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff" /><param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/embed/KevinKelly_2007P-embed-PARTNER_high.flv&amp;su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/KevinKelly-2007P.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=319" /><param name="src" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="446" height="326" src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/embed/KevinKelly_2007P-embed-PARTNER_high.flv&amp;su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/KevinKelly-2007P.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=319" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<h3>#4 Yochai Benkler On Open-source economics</h3>
<p>Law professor <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/view/id/223"><strong>Yochai Benkler</strong></a> explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization. By disrupting traditional economic production, copyright law and established competition, they&#8217;re paving the way for a new set of economic laws, where empowered individuals are put on a level playing field with industry giants.</p>
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<h3><span id="altHeadline">#5 Ray Kurzweil On How Technology Will Transform Us</span></h3>
<p>Inventor, entrepreneur and visionary Ray Kurzweil explains in abundant, grounded detail why, by the 2020s, we will have reverse-engineered the human brain and nanobots will be operating your consciousness.</p>
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<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/5-unmissable-ted-talks-on-the-future-of-technology-and-the-web.htm">5 Unmissable TED Talks On The Future Of Technology And The Web</a></p>
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		<title>How To Say Thank You On The Social Web</title>
		<link>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/how-to-say-thank-you-on-the-social-web.htm</link>
		<comments>http://blog.steffanantonas.com/how-to-say-thank-you-on-the-social-web.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:12:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steffan Antonas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.steffanantonas.com/?p=758</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Whether or not you chose to acknowledge it, your ability to sink or swim on the social web depends on how you participate, engage others and embrace the customs of the virtual gift economy &#8211; this is as true for individuals as it is for big brands who have a web presence.
The concepts of &#8220;FREE [...]<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/how-to-say-thank-you-on-the-social-web.htm">How To Say Thank You On The Social Web</a></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-762" style="margin: 8px;" title="thankyou" src="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/thankyou.jpg" alt="thankyou" width="300" height="220" />Whether or not you chose to acknowledge it, your ability to sink or swim on the social web depends on how you participate, engage others and embrace the customs of the virtual <a id="aptureLink_r28TZtmNCl" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift%20economy">gift economy</a> &#8211; this is as true for individuals as it is for big brands who have a web presence.</p>
<p>The concepts of <a id="aptureLink_jYzhz9BXGS" href="http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free">&#8220;FREE as a business model</a>&#8221; and sustainable gift culture generally makes sense to people in the context of products, services, brands and community building, but the understanding sometimes breaks down when it&#8217;s mentioned in the context of individual relationships and social media. Seasoned vets know that there are a host of unwritten rules and customs for reciprocating that we should follow when we benefit from free content and receive help and advice from others on the web. I&#8217;ll discuss some of those rules, explain why they&#8217;re important and offer some ways to act on them below.<span id="more-758"></span></p>
<h3>Reciprocity Is A Broad Community Custom</h3>
<p>A creative, participatory culture based on &#8220;free&#8221; is only sustainable if we all give more than we take in the long run. I call this <a id="aptureLink_JERCqO2QJz" href="../the-cookie-jar-principle.htm">The Cookie Jar Principle</a>. There are millions of people out there who have embraced the online culture of collaboration and participation. These people spend hundreds of hours creating free content and posting it on blogs, wikis, FAQs, and photo and video sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube (to name a few) so that anyone can use and enjoy it. That said, just because it&#8217;s posted online for free under a <a id="aptureLink_BaVzscAR8r" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative%20Commons%20licenses">creative commons</a> license doesn&#8217;t mean that all that creative energy has been spent <em>JUST</em> because these people believe that art and information should be free. If you take a deep look at why people chose to produce all this content, you&#8217;ll realize that they&#8217;re forgoing monetary compensation to build social capital. Even though there&#8217;s no money in it, they definitely DO benefit &#8212; they create things for others to learn from and enjoy to be recognized, networked and notable. They know that their contributions build relationships and beget trust, credibility and status. There&#8217;s a measure of self esteem, diginity and joy of contribution and <em>connectedness </em>they they get from the act of creating and giving. The majority of the online community recognizes this and it is (therefore) customary for community members that benefit from the time and energy these people spend creating content to reciprocate in some way to show appreciation &#8211; this demonstration of appreciation is the cultural norm. It&#8217;s crucial to see why this culture of reciprocation exists and embrace it. Trust me, you&#8217;ll be glad you did.</p>
<h3>Whuffie (Social Capital) Matters Most Online</h3>
<p>I can&#8217;t over emphasize this point. Reputation and social status are what we accumulate when we interact and build relationships online. The sum of our contributions and the level and quality of our participation and collaboration online are measured in the accumulation of <a id="aptureLink_xO2TlK5gYh" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie">whuffie</a> or <a id="aptureLink_i01pFn9TPJ" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%20capital">social capital</a>, not material wealth. Anything that helps us collect, measure and display the accumulation of this social capital improves our reputation and helps us build connections and rapport with others (which helps us build more social capital that we can use to make more connections that help us get things done, and so on). The accumulation of this type of capital helps create a virtuous cycle for those of us whose contributions  continuously add value &#8211; which is as it should be, no? The social web is the world&#8217;s largest and broadest meritocracy.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re interested in the concept of &#8220;Whuffie&#8221; and how it can benefit you or your organization, <a id="aptureLink_sjowQGYviu" href="http://twitter.com/missrogue">Tara Hunt</a> recently wrote a fantastic book that I highly recommend called <a id="aptureLink_f6k14Z3s4c" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyFaWoiL6Cc">The Whuffie Factor</a>. Check it out. It&#8217;s the real deal. I was also was fortunate enough to attend and tape Tara&#8217;s presentation &#8220;<a id="aptureLink_oM2SYoAoAu" href="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3983571&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1">The Whuffie Factor: The 5 Keys for Maxing Social Capital and Winning with Online Communities</a>&#8221; at the Web 2.0 conference this year in San Francisco. The video is lengthy, but it&#8217;s worth watching. Tara is awesome and it was easily one of the best talks given this year.</p>
<h3>The Social Web Has It&#8217;s Own Currency For The Social Capital Economy</h3>
<p>Sure we get free access, but we pay tribute and show appreciation constantly. We contribute to discussion on each other&#8217;s blogs, we share and promote other people&#8217;s content on social media platforms like Twitter and Friendfeed. We recommend people to others, vote, make introductions, give credit and link liberally to content we like and benefit from. These small (free) actions are the currency of the social web. When we benefit from free, we should always make sure to give back this way and say thank you.</p>
<h3>The Two Way Street</h3>
<p>Ignoring the two way culture of the social web is a major faux pas. Participating in social media is about engagement, conversation, reciprocation and exchange. Participating on social platforms by broadcasting alone (even if you give your content away for free) isn&#8217;t enough &#8211; in fact, it&#8217;ll hurt you in the long run. In the end, broadcasting alone flags self-interest and people will turn their noses up at you. Debate, don&#8217;t preach. Swap and share, don&#8217;t broadcast. Promote the content of others, not just your own. And don&#8217;t forget, when you do these things, remember to use the currency of the social web.</p>
<h3>Ways You Can Use Social Media To Reciprocate (Say Thank You)</h3>
<p>I&#8217;ll keep this brief and just include the main currency evenues that I use to reciprocate, engage and say thank you on the web. Please, if you have a method you have seen that really has a positive impact on others (especially if that impact is highly emotional and public) include it in the comments.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Recommend Someone </strong>- This is a powerful way to say thank you and you should always do it publicly if you can. Posting a recommendation on FriendFeed or Twitter is good, but I find that writing a recommendation that&#8217;s more lasting and attached to someone&#8217;s public profile is FAR more appreciated. LinkedIn is great for this &#8211; if someone helps you, and you think they&#8217;ve done great work or you&#8217;ve benefited from their insight and expertise, ask them if they&#8217;d mind if you wrote a recommendation for them. If they agree, be brief, personal and make it about them, not you. Say how this person has helped you, what it meant to you and why they are notable.</li>
<li><strong>Comment on blog posts &#8211; </strong>Comments are standard currency in the blogosphere. If someone helps you out, or you learn something from their post, take 5 minutes and add to the discussion. Note: Try not to just say &#8220;awesome post!&#8221;. It&#8217;s lazy. Always focus on adding value. Blog posts aren&#8217;t meant to be static &#8211; comments are all part of the game. Add a gem that increases the value of the overall post.</li>
<li><strong>Promote Their Content</strong> &#8211; Read something you liked that you learned from? Promote it on Twitter or Friendfeed, or email it , digg it, stumbleit with a provocative subject line. Producing content, it turns out, is the easy part &#8211; it&#8217;s getting found by an interested audience that&#8217;s really hard. Help people creating content achieve their goals by sharing. <em>Note: I recently wrote an article on </em><a id="aptureLink_bpwcIpKYiM" href="../essential-techniques-for-effective-signaling-on-twitter.htm">how to do this effectively with Twitter</a><em>. Please check it out if you&#8217;re interested.</em></li>
<li><strong>Write a post Link and Give Credit -</strong> <a id="aptureLink_cn8QUDsTpx" href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2007/02/google_juice.html">Google juice</a> is huge. If you link to someone&#8217;s content in a blog post and give them credit, you&#8217;ll send them traffic and increase their ability to get found in search engines. In-coming links tell the Google&#8217;s of the world that something is worth a look. The more links, the higher they rank. Every link counts. <em>Note: Linking with blog posts instead of social media is important because links from services like Twitter and FriendFeed don&#8217;t count towards page rank in search.</em></li>
<li><strong>Make An Introduction</strong> &#8211; It&#8217;s a much more direct way of recommending someone, but powerful if you can effectively connect them to someone new and start a relationship where both parties can benefit. You can do this over any social media platform, but email is better and doing it in real life is the best. The trick is to do it in a way where you catalyze the connection and immediately step way. Again, this is about them and the connection, not you.</li>
<li><strong>Take The Thank You Offline &amp; Make it Tangible &#8211; </strong>The methods of the old school still work best. Hand written notes, a tangible gift that says thank you, a personal letter&#8230;these things still matter. In a world where we&#8217;re inundated with superficial messages and we get pinged from mulitple services hourly, taking the time to give someone something tangible that they can touch, enjoy and experience will mean a lot more to them than some text on a screen.<strong><br />
</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.steffanantonas.com/how-to-say-thank-you-on-the-social-web.htm">How To Say Thank You On The Social Web</a></p>
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