Alert Blog Reviews

If you are easily the number 3 horse in a three horse race does it do you any good to start saying negative things about how you race? Probably not. In fact, it’s probably better for you to act a little more confident, train a little harder and do something that will move you out of the basement. This horse I am referring to is Microsoft’s Bing. One of the ways that they have decided to move up in the race is to ingest the number 2 horse (Yahoo), which is a decent play but the final product is still very far off. In the meantime it’s best not be saying the following in a Bing forums thread as reported by Search Engine Roundtable , especially if you are Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, Brett Yount It is well known in the industry that MSNbot is fairly slow. Ok, maybe it is well known to the industry insider but the rest of the world may not have that level of understanding. When you say something like that though now they can and not much good can come from that kind of ‘exposure’. Bing has had a pretty quiet start to the new year thus far. With all of the talk of mobile devices and mobile ad platforms and things of the future maybe that warrants Bing being left out of the conversation? Whatever the reason, maybe the better way to make the news is to be reporting on upgrades and improvements like the number one horse has been doing for the past three plus months. Ooops, I forgot. Steve Ballmer was busy promoting Bing at CES this week with inspiring words of innovation like these which I found in Forbes “More than ever we are delivering the experiences that people want, where they want them, wherever they are,” Ballmer said in his second-ever keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday night. “And of course we Bing we Bing we Bing we Bing Bing Bing all the time, at least in my world.” I don’t know about you but this kind of ‘activity’ isn’t exactly inspiring me to confidence that Bing may never be more than a distant second with its Bingahoo offering to Google for a very long time. Your thoughts?

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Bing Needs to Say Something Different

By Peter Robert Casey – Follow him @Peter_R_Casey I’ll be frank. I never intended to leverage my personal Twitter account as a passport to sit courtside at Carnesecca Arena or Madison Square Garden with media credentials . It just happened that way. Thanks to St. John’s University and the progressive vision of Associate AD, Mark Fratto, your Twitter feed can now be considered a legitimate media outlet for covering college basketball, or any sport for that matter. This is only the beginning. Since St. John’s validated Twitter in early August, I’ve corresponded with the executive team of a reputable Division I Conference, multiple NBA team properties, and the NBA League Office. And guess what? They all embrace our favorite microblogging platform, too. Moreover, their peers across all sports, conferences, divisions, and levels are not far behind. My situation may have been undesigned, but press row Twitter access is now open for discussion. Here’s how you can position yourself for an opportunity: Stop, look, and listen. Stop running your keyboard’s mouth and stop taking shortcuts. If you created a separate email account for Twitter notifications that you ignore, stop; merge or monitor your inbox. How do you know who’s following you? Do you really comb your followers list on a regular basis? Get on TweetGrid, subscribe to relevant Twitter lists, and set up TweetBeep alerts to start listening to conversations. Mark Fratto conceived the credentialing idea, but I initiated the conversation. When St. John’s Basketball (STJ_Basketball) joined Twitter in late May of 2009, I was quick to publicly welcome them with an @reply. Who do you think started following me soon after? Focus. On what, you ask? Focus on building trust, relationships, and influence, not followers. Focus on being helpful, and creating practical, value-added content. Focus on one sport or one team, and own it. We can’t be all things to all people, and it doesn’t behoove us to try. You’ve probably heard this expression before: “There’s no ‘and’ in brand. The more specifically you define who you are and what you do, the better chance you’ll have of selling yourself.” This adage holds true on Twitter as well.. If you focus on giving and contributing relentlessly to your niche community, decision makers will take notice. Go off Twitter. As valuable as Twitter is, 140 character messages cannot replace the authority of a well-positioned, content-driven blog, vlog, or podcast. Long form media separates the desirous from the dabblers, and allows a publisher to hone and test their chops. Twitter may be nearing its fourth birthday, but to sports media brass, it might as well be four months old. Having an integrated and influential social media and search engine presence is essential to commanding a press pass. What does your blog or Google say about you? What outlets have you written for? Have you developed an offline relationship with the Media Relations/Marketing/Communications staff at your desired Tweeting destination? Make the ask. If your local college or professional sports team hasn’t approached you yet, it may be time to make the ask; but, only after you’ve listened intensely; established trust and productive relationships; focused on being a valuable and caring member of your Twitter community; shared helpful content and contacts; and built a well-recognized and respected, easy-to-find personal brand across various social channels. Before Twitter lists replace number of followers as the metric for influence, college and pro teams will still look at your follower counts, RTs, and directory-based influence ranks. Where do you stack up? When you’re ready for the pitch, do so privately and don’t burn a bridge if the request is denied. Most media relations departments are still trying to wrap their head around credentialing bloggers, so be patient. What else? I recognize that wide adoption of credentialing Tweeters will take time, but how can we, together, help the cause? Please leave additional advice below. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Tweet Your Way to Press Row

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Tweet Your Way to Press Row

By Jade Craven – Follow her @jadecraven . Twitter recently introduced a new feature called lists to many users. This isn’t available to everyone – I’ve heard many reports of people who are unable to see anybodies lists. Basically, it allows you to organize the people you follow into several different categories. These can be made private and can be followed by others. This is an awesome for those who are using the web interface as you can choose the groups you want to read at any time. However, there are some considerations you need to make before embracing this feature. 1. People may be offended by not being included on a list. Some of my friends created lists like ‘awesome friends’ and ‘top bloggers.’ They used these terms as generalist lists but some people took offense at not being included on a list. This is very similar to the follow/unfollow situations that happened before people started to embrace groups on other clients. So, what can you do to avoid offending? • Have a disclaimer on your twitter landing page • Make your list private • Organize lists by geographic region – ie, Melbourne bloggers. 2. You can see what lists you appear on This isn’t a bad aspect – in most cases, it helps show how people perceive you. This is especially helpful for people who don’t have a defined purpose on twitter. You may get categorized by geographic region or industry, but you may also get organized into trait specific lists. Examples are ‘helpful people’ or ‘interesting links.’ This can help you ascertain how you can be more useful on twitter. 3. You can easily get the tone of a group You can organize people into groups like conference attendees or people who work at a company. This is more efficient than a hashtag as you can filter out the people you don’t want to hear from. You can pick up on the overall vibe which will make it useful when reporting on it. 4. It may make it easier for companies to target you I actually wrote about how twitter lists can help with buyer personas over at the Think Tank Media (http://thinktankmedia.com.au/blog/how-to-use-twitter-lists-in-your-business/) blog, but I can also see it as another way some companies may be able to find, and then spam you. This is important to be aware of. 5. You can easily identify what types of people users follow Seeing the lists in the sidebar can let you know what type of people, and content, certain users follow. This can be useful when networking. You can see that you have a mutual interest and follow some of the same people and start a conversation. This can be useful if you are trying to join a community or connect with a new person. 6. You can use it as an extension of the groups function I’m a bit slack on tweetdeck – I only have three columns. One for my mentions, DM’s and one for a group of people I talk to regularly. I always pop onto the web version to have general chats but this can become unmanagable when I’m following so many cool people. I’m now planning to create certain lists and then dive into them at certain times of the day. This can help me assess the conversation across many fields of interest and geographic regions. 7. You can see how many lists OTHERS are on This may be used as another method of assessing popularity. As I write this, I’m on 2 lists and Chris Brogran is on 144 – which is the way it should be. This could be a really useful method but is also open to abuse and may impact on user experience. It will be interesting to see if spammers try to manipulate this feature. 8. You are able to follow other peoples lists I am not sure what twitters intentions were with this feature, but I really like it as it saves time. Some users can also use it to establish authority by finding the best users and creating popular lists around them. Over to you What do you think of this new feature? Do you think it will help you twitter experience? Let us know how you intend to use it in the comments. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Essential: 8 Things to Consider Before Using Twitter Lists Related posts: Construct your own ‘Top 10 Must Follow’ List as it relates to your own Niche Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 2 – Link Lists Topify – An Essential Twitter Timesaver

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Essential: 8 Things to Consider Before Using Twitter Lists