FacebookFacebook has finally made a come back with its revolutionary step by launching the Open Stream API, which allows third party developers to request permission and gain access to users’ data–comments, status updates, videos and photos, and publishing them in full stream inside their applications or services.
Sounds familiar? Yes, reminding us the third party desktop clients for Twitter such as Twhirl and Tweetdeck. Not only users get to monitor their tweets efficiently, but also create content directly in the streams. So now Facebook is following suit?
For those who are familiar with Facebook, it has been profoundly recognized for its privacy control and strict policy in data porting. Remember last year’s incident involving the dispute between Facebook and the famous blogger named Robert Scoble? He got banned from the site after attempting to export his Facebook contact list to Plaxo by using a script. But now, it seems like Facebook is going towards a new era by opening up the data stream to developersinstead. And now, new questions aroused among Facebook members regardingprivacy issues:
“Could there be dangers of data leaking? And what if one determines to keep his data private, while another who had been tagged earlier with the same photo decides to go public with all his data? How does somebody claim his/her privacy without consent?…”
It is our hope that Facebook would apply delicate, convincing methods on the implementations, so not to upset the existing users who valued the privacy control Facebook has over Twitter.
Look on the bright side, Facebook is aiming to build user loyalty from the open stream experience, and converging them to be more engaging with Facebook than ever before. Some are anticipating on how Facebook would cope to ensure the success of this implementation. But one thing for sure, multiple usage of new applications would start to mushroom, and by having Facebook and Twitter holding hands in one application? It will be a fairy tale no more:
Integration of Facebook acc in Seesmic Desktop 0.2.0
So, whether or not Facebook Has Twitter Envy, or the developers are under massive pressure from their big boss/share holders on securing its influential state in social networking, Facebookmembers should always be the core of their attention: by enhancing the existing networking service with friends and families, make it less cumbersome, along with faster loadings etc. Facebook could still go a long way, considering the fact it is catering for over 200 million users, and still growing, just as we speak.
This week it’s my pleasure to present you a guest post by Rajeev Edmonds, who also known as mintblogger. Rajeev has always been a mentor, a kind friend who has been very helpful in the beginning of my blogging journey. He owns a blog about Blogging Tips & Social Media. Today he shares with us the Top 10 Traffic Sources For a Blog. Enjoy! ~ Ching Ya
Traffic is life and blood of Internet. It is the driving force of any successful online business. There are dozens of channels through which traffic may arrive on your web site or blog. Some of these are conventional channels and some are unconventional and relatively new which were non-existent a decade back. Here are some popular traffic sources that contribute in building traffic on your blog.
Organic Traffic
Search engines are unarguably the biggest traffic source for almost every blog. Depending on the niche, age of the blog and size of the archive, your organic traffic share can range anywhere between 30% to 90%. As your tail gets long, the traffic from organic sources inflates dramatically. Gradually this traffic becomes consistent sending targeted visitors to your blog. If you want regular traffic from search engines, you must take care of the following things while generating content.
After search engines, social media sites are the second most popular traffic pulling sources. On a good day your social media traffic can be as high as 2 to 4 times of your normal organic traffic. Here’s a social media traffic case study by Darren Rowse showing a Tsunami of 250,000 visits on Digital Photography School in a single day.
Feed Aggregators (Email + RSS)
Feed subscribers are a good source of repeating visitors. Generally, feed click-through rate depends on variable conditions. If you are providing full feed to subscribers, clicks will naturally be much low as compared to partial feeds. But again it’s a trade-off between more visits versus good subscriber retention rate.
Guest Blogging
That’s what I’m doing right now. Guest blog more often and see the growth in traffic as well as subscribers. If you have a new blog, it is the best way to get rapid exposure. Make the habit of submitting at least one guest post per week to a blog in similar niche. You will notice increase in your traffic in leaps and bounds.
Discussion Forums
Get involved with like-minded people in discussion forums and you are bound to receive more traffic via referrals and your entries. Here I must stress on the selection of forums where you are going to contribute. Although there are some very high traffic forums, but unfortunately they are full of spam. I’d highly recommend joining Authority Blogger Forum, which has a lively and helpful community and is almost free of any spam.
Article Marketing
I used article marketing as one of traffic pulling method when I launched mintblogger back in 2008. Big articles sites like Ezine Articles send very good traffic over long period of time. Couple of my articles on Ezine still sends good traffic after one year of their publication. Another advantage is backlinks every time you submit an article.
Comments
Regular commenting not only brings traffic but also build relationships. Be the first one to comment on a high traffic blog and see how many visitors you will receive. In case this post goes viral then it’s icing on the cake. Generally commentators have the tendency to check links of first few comments. The higher you are in the ladder, the more visits you are bound to receive. Make sure you leave a constructive comment to get the maximum benefit from it.
Blogrolls
Once your blog develops a decent readership, you will notice links to your blog popping up on blogrolls of different blogs. Sometimes bloggers include a link voluntarily and sometimes in exchange of a link. Whatever is the situation, they do help in diverting some traffic across participating blogs.
Advertising
And last but not the least is the advertising option. If you are desperate to get quick traffic and your pocket allows, you can opt for PPC advertising campaigns. Facebook offers very economical CPM based advertising options with a rate as low as $0.05 per impression. It allows you to create highly target campaign using the demographic data of Facebook users. You can also use Adwords to get good traffic in quick time.
Other Traffic Sources
1. Blog Carnivals 2. Direct Traffic 3. Bookmarks (Browser bookmarks) 4. Word of Mouth 5. Offline Promotion
Identity Theft is a major concern in real life. But would you be as attentive if it involves your virtual life? We all heard about content theft, scrappers who steal our blog contents for own benefits. Now evoked a big question in the social media world:
“How far would you go to protect your banding? Beloved URL? And of course, your username! Should we be worrying and constantly on the look-out for our vanity URL & username in the world wide web?”
A new website called KnowEm.com, co-founded by Barry Wise, was launched recently. It enables you to monitor hundreds of popular social media sites to prevent identity theft. For starter, by going to the site, key in your username, or any brand name that associates with your business/current projects etc; you’ll get a full glimpse of the account availability of your keyword for 120 popular sites:
I know what you’re thinking. 120++?? And I’m perfectly sure, a majority of us don’t own even 20% of the sites listed! The laborious tasks of registering each of them would be..well, somewhat, crazy, unless your branding name means the world to you. KnowEm does provide the service of securing your identity in one-go over 120 social media websites, if you are willing to pay a fee of $64.95; and $9.95 additional for the auto-registrations for the upcoming social media sites.
Mouse-over shows the descriptions of the social media site
This would be good news for the reputed companies, also celebrities if they ever plan to take social media seriously and further ahead. It was mentioned in this piece of news that some big names are still available on almost 90% of some sites shown on KnowEm‘s list. Uh-oh…
The concerns?
As much as I think normal people like us won’t bother much to pay for the service, some of the big names in various industries may not think so, ONLY IF they plan to make social media part of their marketing strategy. In a news article of L.A.Times: Ignore Twitter? Major Brands Learn They’d Better Respond–And Quick,Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst at Forrester Research made his point regarding the matter,
“To stay safe in the social media minefield, brands need to make sure to secure their own domain names in the various online environments — before any squatters do — and then start to build a community there. Then when a crisis happens, online or off, brands can then use that community to their advantage.”
Considering social media has gone mainstream nowadays, not to mention the Twitter frenzy between Ashton Kutcher and CNN, now even Oprah Winfrey joins in the game; predicting more famous parties may dip their toes into social media soon enough. While Know’Em may be seen as an alternative to partially prevent the identity theft in social media, some also see it as a timely opportunity to profit while creating a name in social web.
Opinions?
Do you think the identity theft concern is over-exaggerated? Or they are right on the punch? Would there be a branding/username-grabbing spree on the social media web from now on? Would you pay for the service? Do share with us your opinions.
Ever came across with some personalized twitter backgrounds that made you go “WOW”? Yeah, the admiration for their great creativity verged to a point that I really hope to get one myself.
Why you should have a personalized twitter background?
To catch attention
To leave an impression. Help people to remember you.
To let your personality shines through – ‘Personal Branding’!
To gain publicity (businessmen, designers, photographers, artists…)
And more…
Even if you’re not fancy any spotlights, it would still be a fun experience to try: evoke discussions among your friends or network, spice things up a little. Still not convinced? I hope Hugh Briss could somehow talk you into Making a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background.
It’s time for a makeover! There are websites that provide free templates for download, like Twitter Patterns; service such as Twitbacks that allows you to customize background while include all your business/contact details you wish to display as reviewed by Darren Rowse; softwares like Adobe Photoshop or some even using PowerPoint to workout the magic. However, after my trial with Free Twitter Designer yesterday, I was impressed for its simplicity, easily customized, non-complexed Twitter background/image generator.
Firstly, you’ll be greeted by some cool-looking themes. Make a selection if you wish, or if you prefer to start from scratch, select‘blank’. No worries, you could always change your mind and add them in later.
Now, here’s the overview of your work space. The tools are arranged neatly at your side bars. The middle page enabling preview of your artwork as you progressed.
Click the image to Enlarge
Step By Step… 1. Here you need to decide: either add a photo from your computer as background via ‘Add Image‘,
or create a template of your own by adding Text/Shapes to your work space.
2. Try out several arrangements, such as:
Resizing your shape/image by dragging the sides;
Rotate it ;
Fade the image for a watermark effect ;
Tryout several Blending Modes to add depths or effects to your artwork;
Or apply emboss, inner/drop shadow effects etc with Styles.
3. Everything seems intact. How about a little general preview by toggling on/off the visibility of the Twitter example page. (Ghosted = semi-transparent)
Satisfied? Let’s save your masterpiece shall we?
4. Click ‘Generate Image’(C).
A- Reapply or change the twitter theme.
B- “Click & Destroy”. if you wish to restart everything.
5. After the image has done loading, click ‘Save Image’ to download your work.
7. Go to Settings > Design > Changebackground Image.
8. Upload your previously saved design to your Twitter profile page. Click Browse > locate your file.
* untick tile background – for a static design as you scroll down the page * tick tile background – follow your mouse-scrolling, and repeating tile-effect
9. Mission accomplished! Here’s the sample of my amateurish work.
Now It’s Your Turn… Make a difference with your Twitter background. Have you being using other web tools? Which is your favourite? Share with us your thoughts, and don’t forget to show off your creation by leaving a comment below. Enjoy!
As much we like to keep Twitter as socially prioritized and conversational as possible, it would be a little dishonest to say you’ve never thought of promoting your own ‘work’ via Twitter at all. Remember the Wild Thing Called ReTweet? Wouldn’t that be great to have our articles go viral and hopefully, receive numerous visits from people around the world?
REALLY??? .. this is no fairy tale so, NO, you may not get as much clicks instantly as those popular sites. However, chances are that some of your followers might pay your link a visit or even retweet it for the sake of liking it. If you’re lucky, some of them may even becoming your blog subscribers.
Ready for Some Shameless Self-Promos?
Similar to ‘Digg’ or ‘Stumble upon’, the main idea is to keep your post visibly and easily retweetable as possible, here are the 5 Easy Twitter Style To Promote Your Article:
1. Twitterfeed
Same concept as feedburner. Instead of email-notification, twitterfeed will send your latest published blog post to twitter. Here’s how:
a. Login to twitterfeed using your Open ID. (In case you don’t have one, kindly create it at myvidoop)
OpenID = an user identity created to gain access with sites that accept OpenID, no extra, new username/password needed. MyVidoop is the OpenID Identity Provider for Twitterfeed. Once registered, user can login to Twitterfeed via OpenID, Twitterfeed will then verify with myVidoop for its authenticity before granting access to user.
b. After successfully login, create new feed. Provide the RSS feed URL for your blog & setup the frequency for twitterfeed to detect & tweet your blog post for you.
2. PleaseRT.me
People should hear your urgency quite loud and clear with the magic word ‘Please’. Get your RT message drafted, include the already-shorten url then paste it in the box.
Login with your username & password to send out the tweet. Those who are likely to RT, may click on the shorten pleaseRT url (in this case: http://pleaseRT.me/1qp).
Add ‘Twit This Post’ link right after your post. You could configure the content of tweets according to your likings. The basic structure of the coding is:
<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=title+of+your+post+http://pre-configured tiny url+@your
username“>Tweet This Post</a>
For Example:
On Twitter Page View:
Or, you could even replace the link with a cute Twitter icon, some choices are availablehere .
It’s Up To You Now… All you need is the effort to do it. So, work on that catchy title, get enough followers within your niche using these 15 killer apps. This wild thing just might surprise you. Love to hear your RT experiences. If you have other great ways, do share in your comments.
“There were 10, now only 8 left in the show… Who could be, the next American Idol?…”
Ok, I”ll drop the Ryan Seacrest act. Truth is, I’m very much of a music fan, and I enjoy whatever shows that are about finding new talents, and shaping them into a better and successful artist. Every week these talented contestants are working hard to earn favors from the judges and impress the viewers. Just like you and me, they are striving for their future, their passion in singing & showmanship. It’s hard to not think about ourselves, the new/existing bloggers who are everyday worrying about:
‘song choices’ = contents, to impress our ‘viewers’ = readers, anxious about our ‘votes’ = traffics, hoping for acknowledgements from the ‘judges’ = the pro bloggers?
Well today, I’m neither here to judge the contestants’ personalities nor vocal abilities. Instead, based on their respective stage presentations, hopefully we could learn a thing or two about what type of attitudes or virtues we ought to have in getting ourselves a better position in the blogging industry. Here goes:
Danny Gokey – Dynamic & Energetic
He has a powerful vocal. But what makes him stands out, is his energetic & joyful presentation on the stage. This guy is never out of dynamic, whether in slow or fast tempo. So what if Simon Cowell thinks his choreography’s a little clumsy … he did get everybody up and dancing, right?
A serious blogger’s journey is never too easy for most people. We face difficulties, occasional mind-blocks & frustrations… but what matters most is to never lose our dynamic in writings. Believing in every cloud there’s a silver lining, get over the down periods and move on with hope. Be optimistic about your coming strategy, brings out the energy in your contents, get your readers up and ‘dancing’ (or commenting) ^^
Kris Allen – Sincerity & Consistency
What I feel from Kris is his sincerity in his performances. He might not be as highly featured by AI in the earlier stage of the competition, but his talents shine through from his consistent deliverance of each song, the guitar playing & fantastic vocal. It’s not difficult to notice, ‘This guy really can SING!’
If you believe you have what it takes to be the next problogger, eventhough you’re still remained un-noticed in your niche, never ceased to give your best in every blog post. Eventually you would get the credit you deserved for what you can deliver to your readers. Be true to who you are, and mostly, maintain the sincerity in what you’re doing. Do not be someone you’re not.
Allison Iraheta – A Dark Horse
It’s hard to believe that powerful vocal comes out from a 16 year old. Age is not an issue on AI, and she does make a great impression in this competition. Age, gender, race etc is never an issue in blogging. Don’t give yourself excuses for ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m way too young’ or ‘I’m not educated enough..’ Be the dark horse of the game, and show people what you got. Don’t under extimate your gifts, as nobody would believe in you if you don’t start believing yourself.
Adam Lambert – Unexpected & Variety
You can’t predict what’s coming up next for this guy. People are excited about his showmanship, what act he’s gonna pull next. Anticipation is always the main attraction in blogging. To be relevant & contemporary. Create engaging posts while entertaining at the same time is never easy. As much people might have controversy in what you’re delivering, just like not everyone enjoys Adam’s performances, but he’s all over YouTube & appears to be one of the most discussed contestants in AI. Variety helps in blogging, but don’t go too extreme with it.
Lil Rounds – Be in the Right Niche
Brilliant R&B singer. She has incredible vocal range, and been comparing to the great Mary J Blige. Obviously, she’ll do amazingly well if she has the right song choice everytime she gets on the stage. For bloggers, one of the most challenging things to do is to pick the right niche for yourself. Don’t write something that’s out of your comfort zone. Not a pro in your field? At least pick what you’re interested in for starter. Hard work & research would help much in shaping up your personality and help you towards becoming the authority blogger in your niche.
Scott McIntyre – Inspirational
You don’t need me to tell you how amazing Scott is with his piano. He has the likings on choosing inspirational songs that suit well with his personality. The spirit of perseverance – for someone who has sight impairment since birth, he presents well on stage, and sings from his heart. Scott inspires a lot of people that anything is possible: if you believe and go all out for it.
Megan Corkrey – Unique & Personal Branding
This lady sings effortless, and present herself extremely well in showing off her uniqueness in this competition– her quirkly Megan-dance moves & distinctive voice. There are tons of bloggers who are equally good in writings & presentations, how would you able to stand out from the rest? I don’t ask you to be weird or anything, just be creative and if possible, think out of the box. Create a personal branding. Apply your interest in blogging, make your presentation stands out from the rest.
Matt Giraud – Self-Improvement
This guy has all it takes to be a successful singer. Fantastic piano player, great voice, soulful & R&B-ish, no doubt a front runner based on his talents. Matt is constantly improving his performances, and starting to get more credit which he’s well deserved in AI. What shocked everyone was he dropped to the bottom 2 after his solid performance during Motown Week. It’s just how the world works: sometimes if you have unique contents and great deliverance, it requires some times before people would notice and appreciate your hardwork; patience & constant
brain storming on how to capture the readers’ heart is essential. Also, avoid mistakes as it may be disastrous, as most people would remember clearly on wrong-doings, but few on goodness.
Anoop Desai – Self Confidence & Personality
The guy who addressed by Simon as went from ‘zero’to ‘hero’. A smart, fun contestant with steady improvement week after week, most of all he has the personality that adored by the audiences. Not pride, but enough self-confidence that strengthen his journey in AI. As new bloggers, although we’re greatly lacking in experience, but what we could do is to have self-belief, and turn the negative comments into constructive criticism to improve our writings.
Michael Sarver – Likeability
He definitely can sing. Unfortunately, there can only be 1 winner in AI. By being genuine and with great likeability, he won people’s heart in the earlier stage of the competition. Being humble and selfless is what could keep oneself in whatever field you’re in. A virtue that all of us, even non-bloggers should be cultivating in our daily lives.
Isn’t it the same as blogging? All of us new bloggers are on our way to a long, challenging journey of discovering ourselves while learning how to blog at the same time. Hope to be the best (if not, closer to the top) and be successful in it. So, ready for the next Blogger Idol?
