Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

Insights

Tagging Your Online Identity with Retaggr

If you’re on so many social networks you’re losing track, ?or you don’t even know where half your early network memberships are, you might want to check out?Retaggr.

Similar to Google Profiles, Zooity and MyBlogLog, Retaggr condenses all your online information into one handy place. Yet once you start messing around with Retaggr, you see it’s a lot more than a simple online contact hub.

As well as giving you the option to save all your profiles in one place, Retaggr acts as the ultimate social business card. Your contact details, work address, website, blog, street map and more are instantly available.

It also shows what blogs you’re reading, what you’re discussing around the web, multimedia uploads, your latest blog feed and online resume service just to name a few. You can then use that information on a handy business card that you can place on your blog or website. Check the Retaggr card under my short bio to the right, or the main card on my About page to see how it looks.

While Google Profiles shares similar ideas, the interactivity of Retaggr makes it a completely different beast.

You can email someone directly from their business card; join in an IM chat; listen to their music library on the likes of Blip.fm and much, much more.

As you can probably tell, I’m impressed. Even though Retaggr has been out a little while now, they continue to add to and improve their features. If you’re serious about your online presence, I can’t recommend Retaggr enough – it really is that cool.

Check out Retaggr for yourself or have a look at my extended profile and let me know what you think – useful? Will you use it or give it a miss?

Sponsored Tweets and IZEA – Is This Twitter’s Future?

Ted MurphyI caught a tweet from Ted Murphy today, about how a celebrity was paid $2,500 to post a sponsored tweet.

Ted is the founder and CEO of IZEA, the company that owns SocialSpark and PayPerPost.

Both SocialSpark and PayPerPost offer bloggers the chance to earn money from paid product reviews.

It’s a contentious topic that generally splits blogger opinion down the middle, with both sides offering valid reasons for their views for and against sponsored posts or paid blogging. Personally, I’m neither here nor there on the topic as long as it’s handled properly.

Now it seems as if Twitter is IZEA’s latest target, with pre-launch details of SponsoredTweets allowing Twitter users to sign up for the service in readiness for its launch in a few weeks.

The way it works is simple. You sign up, set your price and tag your profile, and then wait for advertisers to offer you their details for an agreed price. You then tweet their message and get paid. Everybody’s happy – the advertiser gets eyeballs and the Twitter user gets money.

But will everybody be happy? Probably not.

Advertisers are already using sponsored tweets to get their message across. One in particular, Magpie, seemed to unilaterally piss off the majority of the Twitter community with its invasive ads (although this may have had more to do with the fact they changed their policy and didn’t require publishers to disclose it was a sponsored tweet).

At least with IZEA’s?approach, all publishers need to disclose their relationship to the advertiser and that the tweet in question is sponsored (much like the company’s blogger requirements).

Yet it looks like IZEA might suffer the same problem as Magpie – the fact that non-users of the service can’t opt out of seeing the ads in their Twitter stream. Sure, you can always unfollow someone if their sponsored tweets get too much – but is that really the best solution?

Perhaps this is where Twitter use will diverge and the service will be monetized. There’s been talk of premium Twitter accounts for a while – would that work?

You could still have a free account but expect to see unwanted ads in your stream. Or, have a premium account and filter the ads out – see your friend’s normal tweets but not ones with ads in them. Whether this would be feasible or not is another thing, but it’s an idea.

What’s your take? Is IZEA’s sponsored tweets service a welcome addition or more noise to the Twitter stream? Would you offer your Twitter account for advertising or keep your tweets from you and you alone?

Creative Commons License photo credit:?tedmurphy

Is This How to Market Your Product?

If you’re a marketer, are you thinking about how to promote your new website or product? And if you’re a consumer, are you getting tired of lazy pitches and ideas?

Take a look at the five images below – each one belongs to a Twitter account that I was notified was now following me.

marshamess

Every single message is the same, from how old the girl is, where she’s from, what she wants to do this weekend and what video she’s just watched.

Now, either the UK is currently enjoying a great spell of Twitter awareness in provocatively dressed female teens or there’s a little bit of shenanigans going on here. I’m going with the latter.

Looking at the accounts themselves, it would seem that it’s a marketing push for web host Cool Blue Solutions. Each account has a background designed by the web host company, and Cool Blue’s Twitter account mentions designing the background for our teen friend Sandra B. Smith.

But then you look at the URL for each of the five girls. That takes you to RevTwt.com, which used to be known as TwtAd, an advertising model for paid tweets.

They’re in the process of a relaunch of the service and are looking for advertisers. They claim to put your ad in front of more than 23 million Twitter users – pretty impressive considering that’s about the estimated number of all Twitter users at present (including bots and spam accounts).

revtwt

So what’s the story here? Is it a marketing push to promote the web host services of Cool Blue Solutions? Is it an advertising push by RevTwt on behalf of Cool Blue Solutions? Is it a little of both?

Whatever it is, here’s the thing. Marketing your message properly means targeting your audience properly. It means knowing who would use your services and what would attract them to that service, and why it stands out from the rest.

Does a semi-nude teenage girl create the right message for Cool Blue Solutions if it’s their campaign? Are they looking for business users of their web services or teenage boys hoping to hit it off with a girl just like the one in the above Twitter accounts?

How about RevTwt, if it’s their push? Did they target anyone with these Twitter accounts or is it just a hit and hope approach? I only ask as I had all five accounts follow me in quick succession, and their bio’s just make your BS spider senses tingle.

Whatever the deal is here, I don’t think it succeeds. The majority of people have moved on from booth babe advertising and marketing pushes and are looking for real people behind the products. Teenage girls in bikinis don’t quite shout web host to me.

What do you think – is this kind of marketing still valid? If you’re a consumer, would you be convinced to sign up to Cool Blue Solutions from the recommendations of these Twitter accounts?

What if you’re an advertiser and RevTwt is behind these accounts – do they make you want to run a campaign with them? Or would your approach differ?

  • Update Monday July 06. Looks like Cool Blue Host may not have been as marketable as they thought. All Twitter accounts mentioned in this post are no longer live and their domain is also available.

The Social Media Drinking Game

IMG_25581The weekend’s almost here, and for the U.S. it’s the Fourth of July weekend.

So, in honour of that and to help your weekend get off to a flier let me introduce the Social Media Drinking Game. It’s ideal for long drunken sessions or short thirst quenchers – or even both at once.

And if you’re not celebrating Independence Day this weekend – join in the fun anyway!

The rules are simple – just follow the instructions below. And remember to leave the car keys at home!

  • If you hear the phrase “echo chamber”, have a full glass of beer. You may hear this a lot and being drunk and comatose will help you get by.
  • If you’re dissed by Amanda Chapel… actually, you get nothing. This isn’t a challenge at all.
  • Every time Mashable does a Twitter story, have a shot of chilled vodka. Be prepared to get very drunk.
  • If Brian Solis writes a blog post less than 1,000 words, have some champagne. This deserves a special drink.
  • For every Twitter profile that has “guru”, “ninja”, “jedi”, “expert” or “master” in it, have a Jack Daniel’s and coke. The soft drink might just keep you going longer.
  • If someone is speaking at the equivalent of a conference a month on the same topic to the same audience, have a single malt Scotch.

Okay, these are just some to get you started. What others would you add to the cocktail?

Note – this is just a bit of fun to lead into the weekend; don’t take it too seriously. The majority of people on here I respect immensely. Happy Fourth of July!

Creative Commons License photo credit: mark sebastian

Why Being Yourself is the Only Thing That Matters

American Spirit Organic CigarettesI’m getting a little jaded currently by various professionals, consultants and business “superstars” on their blogs and other online forums.

The biggest issue is where a point’s been made by the author, someone disagrees because of a personal opinion, and the author backtracks and jumps the other way.

Why?

If you didn’t believe in the thing you wrote about or spoke of in the first place, why mention it? Was it to court popularity? Or appear that you’re agreeing with the majority when instead the opposite would have been true?

The funny thing is that this is happening more and more, and instead of showing that you’re open to debate and differing views it suggests that you can’t make your mind up. Or worse still, are hesitant on the validity of your own beliefs (business and personal).

If that’s the way some people want to play, fair enough – everyone’s entitled to handle themselves the way they feel is best for them.

But just because someone disagrees with you, do you really need to then agree 100% with them on their point? Or does that just weaken your original argument and authority on the topic at hand?

I’m all for admitting that your original thoughts may not be completely right and understanding other points of view, but don’t lose your voice because of it. One of the best examples of someone that stays true to their beliefs is Geoff Livingston. We’ve butted heads in the past and I don’t always agree with his approach, but I respect him 100% for staying true to himself.

The one thing that separates you from everyone else is your belief. It’s what makes you who you are. It’s your conscience; your moral fibre; your business mantra; the reason people either respect you or don’t.

When you lose that, you lose yourself and any respect that people may have built up in you. Surely that’s more important than any perceived popularity contest.

Isn’t it?

Creative Commons License photo credit: ATIS547