If you are new to Twitter, you might have noticed a lot of tweets adding a #followfriday tag to their tweets. What is that? Put simply, #followfriday is an easy way to offer recommendations of interesting people that you follow on Twitter. If you are enjoying the tweets of fellow twitterers, you can tell the world about it.

FollowFriday is an actual Twitter account at http://twitter.com/FOLLOWfriday, and the bio there states it best: “Tweet the names of Twitter users you’d like others to follow and tag it with #followfriday.”

#FollowFriday started quietly in early January 2009 with this simple tweet from from Micah Baldwin stating: “I am starting Follow Fridays. Every Friday, suggest a person to follow, and everyone follow him/her. Today its @fancyjeffrey & @w1redone.”

From that little tweet, a phenomenon was born. I’m writing this post on a Friday morning. Before I started writing, I did a search for #FollowFriday on Twitter. In the time it took to write these few paragraphs, Twitter is telling me that about 4,000 more #followfriday tweets have been added since I did my search. That’s in less than 10 minutes!

So, feel free to participate in #FollowFriday… it’s easy and it’s a nice thing to do. If you are following somebody on Twitter and you find the tweets interesting, by all means give them a boost! Just add a #followfriday to your tweet with the twitter account you want to recommend… do it for one twitterer, do it for 100! Oh, and if you add the @ sign before their twitter name (like mine would be @theatriumdesign) your friend will be sure to notice your good karma and hopefully recommend you right back. You can also highlight a subject matter for searchability by adding #keyword to the mix. That will help others to find #followfriday recommendations for the subjects they like. For example, you could add #dogs as a keyword.

Try it out! You can practice by recommending me! Today’s #followfriday @theatriumdesign. (hint hint!)

ps. 6,284 #followfriday results in the time it took to write this blog. Now, that’s big!

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

So, you have a Twitter account, and you tweet every so often, but honestly, you just don’t get the big deal about Twitter? I used to be the same way! It just seemed like a bunch of people shouting out to a crowded room where nobody was listening! How does that help a business to grow?

Well, here are some ideas and websites to help you make the most of your Twitter account. But first, let’s talk about the PURPOSE of having a Twitter account in the first place. Remember, Twitter (and all social networking sites) are for networking, and having conversations. If you are only shouting out and nobody is listening or talking back, then it’s time to rethink your strategies.

Twitter, in some ways, reminds me of the recent Massachusetts Senate race… if you live in Massachusetts, you were BOMBARDED for weeks by nasty campaign commercials, automated phone calls and very little real conversations about the actual issues that face the Commonwealth. By the day of the elections, I was so frustrated by the yelling and screaming, I had lost faith in all the candidates and was pretty sick of politics in general.

So, in terms of Twitter, we can learn about how to turn people off in the same way. Shouting the same message over and over again will get you nowhere on Twitter. Sharing information and useful ideas will! Here are some tips for tweeting that might help:

1. Keep it light. Twitter doesn’t have to be serious…. lighten up and have a little fun with your tweets.
2. Be personal. Tweet in your own voice, not business-eeze.
3. Don’t advertise. If you must advertise, only allow 1 out of every 5 tweets to be an ad, and even then, don’t keep repeating the same offer. Change it up!
4. Make yourself useful. Offer useful information, retweet information that you found inspiring or interesting. Provide helpful tips. People will look forward to tweets that they can actually use.
5. Engage in @conversations. Don’t just start a conversation, but participate in other conversations too. Basic networking manners apply on Twitter too!

Now, on to how to maximize your Twitter experience. Here a some websites that I find really helpful in managing and growing my twitter friends and relationships:

• Twellow.com This is a great site for not only listing your twitter feed, but even more helpful for finding interesting and relevant people to follow and network about subjects related to you or your business. You can browse and drill down to categories on every imaginable subject and follow people right from their site. Once you find the right categories, you can also list your twitter feed there so people can find you too.
• Buzzom.com Flush. Grow. Recriprocate! Huh? This is a great site that helps you to manage your followers, find new ones, and make sure you are following everybody that follows you (or unfollowing people who AREN’T following you!)
• SocialOomph.com SocialOomph has free and paid accounts. Right now I only have the free account, but I might upgrade. With SocialOomph, you can automate some of your twitter activities, such as sending a direct message back to people who follow you, telling them a little about yourself and inviting them to tweet or visit your website. This is becoming standard practice, and this site makes it easy to set that up.

I’m interested to hear about the Twitter sites you find useful! Feel free to post a comment and tell me about it!

Share on Facebook

Having a website simply isn’t enough anymore in the everchanging world of the internet. Companies not only have to have a dedicated web presence, but they also need to grab the opportunities that social networking offers. Facebook and Twitter accounts allow you to take advantage of numerous viral strategies to get your message out to a far wider audience than your website alone can achieve.

Creating an online marketing strategy is vitally important to today’s small businesses, and offers a great opportunity for branding your company in multiple venues on the web. Establishing a strong and creative social networking plan allows your corporate message and your blog postings to be shared virally through multiple social networking and bookmarking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Delicious and others.

Theatrium Design can help you develop and implement an integrated social networking strategy based on your organization’s needs, personality and action plans. Some of our services include:

• Adding a custom designed blog on your hosted website that complements the look and feel of your current website
• Implementing an RSS feed subscription page to your blog.
• Implementing Share buttons for your blog postings (allow visitors to post your blog content to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, MySpace, StumbleUpon etc)
• Creating and implementing a social networking strategy for integrating Facebook, Twitter and other related social network sites.
• Custom branding for Facebook and Twitter pages
• Porting current content, images, videos, events, special offers etc to your Social Networking sites
• Content creation, feeding and monitoring for your Social Netoworking sites on a daily, weekly or other set schedule.
• Synchronization of all Social Sites to maximize viral effect and efficiency.

Contact Us today to see how we can help you brand your company on the social networks!

Share on Facebook

Looking for some quick new ways to link your Facebook and Twitter accounts into your WordPress pages?  Well, I’ve done a little searching for a few widgets and plugins I think you’ll like.

I found this nifty little plugin for WordPress that makes it a snap to add a cute little “Follow Me on Twitter” badge to WordPress installations… takes less than a minute and all you need to “code” is your twitter link. How easy is that?

To get it on your site, login to your WordPress admin account and, under Plugins, click on “Add New”.  Run a search for “Follow Me” in the Plugins search box, and find the WP FollowMe by wpBurn.com.  When you find it, just look for the “Install” link to the right of the search results and click.

Once installed, you’ll need to enter your twitter URL and choose your icon and you are done.  Now your visistors can follow your tweets with just one little click. Nice!

What’s next?

How about publishing your actual Twitter Feed on your WordPress page (and why wouldn’t you?).  That’s almost as easy.  The WordPress Twitter Widget shows your last few twitters right there in the sidebar of your blog.  Just do another search in your Plugins directory for Twitter Widget and find the one by Sean Spaulding.  Install and activate the widget.  To have it appear on your site, go to your Widgets panel and drag Twitter Widget into your sidebar and save.  You’ll need to enter your Twitter url here too, and then you can also select how many tweets to show.

So, what fun widgets are out there for Facebook?  How about a Share to Facebook icon on all your blog entries?  This makes it easy for your readers to share your content.  The Add to Facebook Plugin by David Goldstein is a simple install that can be configured from your Settings panel once it’s activated.  Choose what kind of icon you wish to show and you are done.

You can also publish a feed from your Facebook page right on your blog’s sidebar.  This one is a little more involved, but easily accomplished.  Go to your Facebook Page and click on “Edit Page”.  Find and click on the Promote with a Fan Box link in the right column.  Select your page from the drop down menu, and in the “Choose where to add the widget” selection, choose “Other”.  You will be given a snippet of code.  Copy that code.

Now, log into your WordPress account.  Go into your Widgets panel and drag a Text widget over to your Sidebar panel.  Paste your Facebook Fan Box code into the text box and hit save.  When you look at your page again, you’ll see your sidebar widget in place with your fans and your latest posts, plus a button for people to easily become a fan.

If you don’t like the look of the Fan Box, you can play around a little with the code to adjust a few things like column width, font size, stream size or number of fans to show.

I hope you play around with some of these fun widgets and let me know when you find cool new widgets to use on your own WordPress site.

Share on Facebook

Lately, I’ve been getting some pretty convincing emails come through that warned me of imminent problem that I need to address… it could be from a bank, utility, email company, credit card company, health care — you name it. They describe the issue and offer a link where you can click to fix the problem.  On Monday, I got an email about unauthorized changes to my Web Hosting Account, which almost got me to click.  But I hesitated and looked around for clues to determine it was malicious… probably saved me a LOT of grief.  Later this week, I received the following email from Graeme Smith, of Atlantic Technology Group.  It’s an excellent rundown of the types of threats that are bombarding your inbox now, and how to avoid major headaches.  Graeme was kind enough to let me pass this information along to you.  Please read this and take heed:

Sent to principal at the organization – please distribute in house.  MAC users – despite the cute adverts on television – two of these exploits can catch YOU – read on…..

Believe it or not – anti-virus software and patched operating systems GENERALLY are making it harder for the bad guys to lever themselves aboard your computer.  So instead they have to try and fool you into visiting a website or clicking on something to do bad things to you.   It must be something to do with the phases or the moon, the time of year – or desperate people – but in the last week we have been answering an increasing number of questions about this sort of thing so what is going on?

Why would people want to do bad things to you?  Put simply – organized crime wants to sell you worthless goods or steal your identity.  There are two principal strategies:

1.  Lever an email house onto your computer that runs in the background distributing spam on their behalf.  The spam email sells fake drugs, get rich quick schemes, dubious mortgage offers etc etc…..  Two things happen to you:

- Your computer slows to a crawl – because it is too busy working for someone else.
- You find a lot of your email no longer goes through but gets returned with an error message identifying you as a spammer.

You are not suffering personal loss but you are frustrated by a dreadfully slow computer and email not going through.

How do they get it aboard your computer?

- email from Microsoft warning of an important update to Outlook/Outlook Express.  Or from Apple with an update to Safari browser.  Both very good FAKES that if you follow the link and click on it – compromises your computer.  Major software vendors generally do NOT distribute software updates in this way.

- email from UPS (or FedEx, or DHL, or the Post Office or a major airline) asking you to click on the attached file to complete a failed transaction.  Click on the attached file and you get a compromised computer.

- Facebook and MySpace (and whatever comes next) photo uploaders are regularly compromised by the bad guys.  As you upload your pictures with the piece of software provided by the website – it also downloads malware onto your computer.  There has been a MAC variant of this one.

2.  Make you think you have a problem on your computer and try to get you to pay a small sum of money in an online purchase for software to rectify the problem.  In the process your credit card details, name and address are stolen.  At best – they run through your credit card, at worst – your identity is stolen.

How do you get fooled?

- Surfing a web site that has been taken over by the bad guys.  It no longer has to be a dubious porn site.  Some are very legitimate sites like News Organizations displaying advertising.   As you visit the page the web site loads a fake web page in the background that looks like a security alert from your computer warning you that your computer is infected with hundreds of problems.  It appears to be scanning and finding problems.  It may be called Anti-Virus 2009, Anti-Virus 2010 or any other number of “Security” type names.  After running the “scan” it warns that your anti-virus is out of date and offers to fix the problem for a low $29.95.  Follow the link to give your credit card details (and give away your identity).  They don’t even fix the problem!!  (surprise surprise).

You can beat this fake warning but it requires quick thinking.  If you click on ANY part of the window – the Cancel button, the Red X to close the window or any part of the surface of the window – the problem will actually load even deeper into your computer and keep coming back.  The fix is to NOT click on anything and simply pull the power lead to force the computer to turn off.  Sure you lose what you were working on since you last saved your work – but it is a lot less aggravation than getting your computer cleaned up.

MAC users – this one can appear on your screens too – it is just a web page in its initial form.

————————–

And as a final note – I’m sure you are asking – why doesn’t your up to date anti-virus software take care of this?  There are a couple of reasons:

- Many of these “click on me” items are configured to in effect ask “Can I do this even though your anti-virus software doesn’t like the idea?”  your click gives them permission to proceed regardless.  The much reviled Windows Vista actually has something called User Access control that would stop your computer as the bad guys tried to climb aboard and would ask “Are you SURE?”.  Many people found this behavior annoying and turned it off – you might want to turn it back on!  Windows 7 also contains the feature – though it has less of a hair trigger and doesn’t trigger for the slightest system change – but it is still a worthwhile feature.

- and no matter how up to date your anti-virus software – there is an inevitable gap between the arrival of a new exploit, it’s detection, the figuring of a fix and its distribution.  A 5 day gap is not unknown during which the new exploit wreaks havoc.  If you have heard the term “zero day” exploit – now you understand the meaning of it.

Share on Facebook

Up until very recently, when clients asked if they could make the facebook page for their business look like their website, I’d have to say, “nope.”  But recently I’ve been seeing some Facebook pages display custom tabs and boxes that allow for custom coding.  Well THAT made me excited! So I dug in a little and found that you can now add a Facebook application to your business page called FBML (Facebook Markup Language) that allows you to add your own custom tabs and boxes that utilize html coding. 

Facebook pages can now be customized

This is GREAT news because it lets you format your Facebook page to somewhat match your website.  I say “somewhat” because the page is still in the framework of the Facebook page itself. 

Because you can add your own tabs and pages to the Facebook page, you can now add your own content in the way you’d like to see it.  For example, I added an About Us page to my facebook page which is much easier on the eye than the standard  “Info” tab. You can add tabs for Special Offers, Promotions, Photos or create a custom page that looks like your actual website homepage, which leads people back there.

Additionally, you can designate which tab will be the default landing tab for new visitors to your Facebook page.

There are a few drawbacks that I found.  First, the standard Facebook Wall and Info tabs remain in place, and second, when your fans navigate to your Facebook page, they automatically visit your Wall page first.  But compared to what was available before the FBML application, this is pretty minor.

Take a look at my Facebook page to see an example of what can be done using FBML: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Theatrium-Web-Design/18617011121 and let me know what you think!

Share on Facebook

Twitter is all over the place.  Good Morning America doesn’t ask for emails anymore – they want you to twitter them.  What gives?  What’s so great about Twitter?  How can it be a tool for your business?

Well, to be perfectly honest, most people use Twitter on a personal level to tell the world what they are up to – no matter how mundane their moment to moment life might be!  If you have a Twitter account, and start to follow other people’s tweets, you can filter down to just content that is relevant to your interests, or follow friends that you really want to hear about.  Frankly, I think a ton of people out there are tweeting into the void, so to speak… they tweet, but they don’t ever listen… it’s a cacophony of tweets, but not much actual communication!

So why bother writing about Twitter today?  Well, here’s one VERY useful way to use Twitter for your own website as a way to publish fresh content on your site quickly and easily, even if you are on the road and never at your desk.  By publishing your Twitter feed on your homepage, you can tell your visitors what you are up to, similar to your Facebook status.

For example, one of my clients and good friends owns Atlantic Charters (www.atlantic-charters.com), a sailing charter company in Marblehead, MA.  As the sailing season is just getting started, he was looking for fresh new ways to boost his marketing.  He recently started a twitter account at http://twitter.com/atlanticcharter, and I added a quick little feed to his site.  Now he can let people know everything from weather alerts in the harbor, to upcoming sailing classes, to rental openings and special events.  When people visit his site, they are offered a current snippet of fresh news that makes his website seem much more dynamic and more connected to his actual business.

For clients that have daily news to offer, adding a twitter feed to your homepage boosts the impact you can achieve with a Twitter account and keeps the Search Engine gods happy too, because you are adding fresh content to your homepage on a daily basis.  (You just have to remember to Twitter often!) Get creative and think of ways that you can offer fresh snippets of information to your clients and then give me a call!

For the DIYers out there, here’s the code snippet to use:

<div id=”twitter_update_list”></div>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://twitter.com/javascripts/blogger.js”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/put-your-twitterid-here.json?callback=twitterCallback2&count=1″></script>

Share on Facebook

A Homework assignment for my clients!

Last week, I attended an online webinar hosted by HubSpot which was really worthwhile. So worthwhile, in fact, that I’m assigning a homework project for all my clients!

Today’s assignment: click on http://www.hubspot.com/archive/world-wide-rave-webinar/ to attend the playback version of the seminar and learn how you, a small business owner, with very limited marketing dollars to spend, can achieve Goliath results with viral marketing techniques that rely on creativity and spunk, rather than dollars and cents.

David Meerman Scott, a Viral Marketing Specialist and author of the best-selling marketing book The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (also required reading, BTW) has just published a new book, World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories. From David Meerman Scott’s website, “A World Wide Rave is when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products-whether you’re located in San Francisco, Dubai, or Reykjavík. It’s when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web. It’s when online buzz drives buyers to your virtual doorstep. And it’s when tons of fans visit your Web site and your blog because they genuinely want to be there.”

When you watch the homework assignment presentation, you’ll hear about other small business types just like you, who are looking for ways to reach the masses and get the word out about their products and services, but don’t have a lot of money to spend, especially in this economy.

Creating “World Wide Rave” is all about putting on your creativity cap and finding new ways to reach your market, not by advertising the hell out of people, or yelling at them “Buy my products” but by reaching out to them in ways that are helpful, constructive, entertaining, thought provoking, or just plain fun and creative. The goal is to create a buzz that people will want to share with their friends, family, coworkers, all their Facebook and MySpace cronies, email it to their address book and generally DO YOUR MARKETING FOR YOU!

I’ve been talking about this for a while now, in my GreenRoom blog and when working with clients. I’ve talked about harnessing the power of Facebook and Twitter, using videos and photography to get your story out there.

But, honestly, David Meerman Scott is the king of all things viral, and when you watch his presentation, I think you’ll want to get his books too. He has a way of warming up your creativity cap to get you pumped for starting your own World Wide Rave project and seeing what happens. World Wide Rave is brand new… you can be among the first to get your hot little hands on it, and start getting the attention you deserve. And as always, I’m here to help, whether it’s brainstorming or implementation!

And yes, there WILL BE A TEST! It’s called your Marketing Strategy!

Share on Facebook