A deep dive into digital marketing

CNMS08

Posted by Chris under Advertising, CNMS08, Chicago, Community, Conference

Tomorrow is the first day of CNMS08 and there’s going to be a lot to take in as the schedule is jam packed. There’s lot’s of great local talent presenting Monday and Tuesday and if you can’t make the full conference you might want to check out the CNMS08 social event tomorrow night from 6-10pm.

I’ll be tweeting the sessions, for as long as the battery lasts, or hopefully I can grab a seat near an outlet. And you can catch it here.

Here’s a link to the PDF of the summit schedule or the PDF itself cnms08_planner_v6

Twitter – via applicaitions

Posted by Chris under Adobe, Air, Technology, Twitter, Uncategorized

In the beginning there was a web browser and Twitter.com But very very quickly as Twitter picked up steam and users there were many other tools for Twitter. These include applications to post to twitter, to read your tweets or even search across twitter.

And my no means is this list fully comprehensive, it’s growing by the week but it’ll give you a start whether you’re an old hand at twitter or a newbie. I personally don’t use twitter.com (the website interface) that much, preferring instead to use a couple of app’s, depending on what platform I’m on. That said I do use the site to follow others, grab individual tweets (e.g.for blog posts) or to update my photo or design.

Applications:
More then comprehensive lists can be found here, here, and here

But to make it easy here are the Applications that I really like. First for computer platform. Now keep in mind I’m on Mac and while I also live in Parallels I’m predominantly working on the Mac, so this is Mac centric (so there).

Twhirl – This was my first go to when I moved away from just using the browser. Built on Adobe Air and now in version 0.8.4, Twhirl is cross platform running on Windows (2000/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX. Twhirl also connects to multiple Twitter, identi.ca, Friendfeed and seesmic accounts, so it’s a bit of all you can eat, which is great.

Two other handy features are the ability to post images to TwitPic, although I tend to do this more on my phone then from my computer, but I do use the built in ability to shorten long URLs (using snurl, twurl or is.gd)
Oh and Twhirl is free

Twitteriffic – I think this is a bit Tomato/Tomato (hear the long “a”) between Twhirl and Twitteriffic but I have friends who swear by it. It also supports multiple Twitter accounts and all of the other things that I mentioned about Twhirl . I think personally it just comes down to which UI you like best.

I should note that I used the paid iPhone version of Twitterifficand love it
Twitteriffic is free with ads or $14.95 for the ad free version.

TweetDeck – My newest Twitter App and the one I’m using the most is TweetDeck which is also built on Adobe Air. I feel like this app is for the graduated, perhaps I dare say sophisticated user of Twitter.

The key thing about TweetDeck is that it “enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets.” Meaning I have multiple columns (think feeds) based on the kind of tweets, starting with an All Tweets, @ replies and then d (direct) replies.

Next up is a column of key people I follow who’s tweets appear in there, making it easy to see what @russu, @armano, @simplybrad or the various Mad Men characters are up to.

So for now TweetDeck is getting the lions share of my Twittering (at least on the computer).

Hope this helps your tweet stream!

help I’ve lost my window

Posted by Chris under Adobe, Technology, Twitter

Recently my Twitter client Twhirl, has developed the annoying habit of not being multi-monitor friendly. By this I mean if I have Twhirl running as I switch screen resolution/size and monitor configuration it can go from not appearing at all.

As in the application is running but the app window is no where to be found. What’s a person to do.

Well over at simplehelp.net they explain how easy this is to fix.

The crux of it is:

Right-click (ctrl-click for single mouse-button folks) – or click and hold down the button for a few seconds, the twhirl icon in your Dock. When the menu appears, select Resize windows.

For more detail check out simplehelp.net and thanks guys, my Twhirl is back!

A Twitter what, why and how to

Posted by Chris under Twitter

Recently I’ve introduced a few people to Twitter, check them out here and here. This started from a lunch time conversation (yes the infamous big boy, and not the restaurant) lunch. During lunch and back at the office we talked about the how to, what’s it all about, hey I heard the Man Men characters were on twitter, etc.

Additionally it turns out that Dr. William J. Ward, is getting his classes involved in twitter and he asked my opinion about how to get started.

So I thought I’d post a quick What, Why and How to Twitter. And because I’m not boldly going where no others have gone before, I’m tapping into some great content that is already out there.

First the What. Below is a great short video from the people over at common craft, the above short video is a great “why” and basic “how to” Twitter. But really covers quite well, what the heck this is and what’s it for.

Next up the Why:

Ok, honestly if you have to know why then Twitter probably isn’t for you. Try a little bit of Yoda as in “do or do not, there is no try” Basically people use Twitter to communicate, duh right. But this can be as a megaphone as in; one-to-many or a one-to-one that many people can see, sort of like a party line where I’m talking to you but others can chime in if they want.

Twitter asks you, “What are you doing?”but I think Chris Brogan said it best ” I believe this is the wrong question to answer. I like to answer the question, “What has your attention right now?”

I use Twitter in much the same way he does: for “advice, directions, support, and to ask others for their open-ended interpretations to general questions.”  In fact, for his further thoughts on the why check out his post here.

Ok now the How:

At first blush there is not much to it. You sign up, a quick 2 min (if that) process, confirm via email, set up your cell phone if you like, etc. Then you are ready to go. But as the old adage goes, if a tree falls…. Well Twitter is much the same way. Until you have some followers no one will hear your voice.* Now I “*” that as if you’ve kept your profile public and are part of the pubic timeline then anyone can “hear” you. But twitter truly become powerful when you follow and are followed by others.

So get started:

I’d recommend doing two things to start. One, start tweeting,  and two start following. Are there people you know, analysts/pundits/etc. people you admire or respect on Twitter, then start following them. Some will auto following you back, others will check you out first. Whatever you do, DO NOT start following tens or hundreds of people right away. Not only does this make the conversation hard to follow (on your end), no one will really take you seriously and you’ll be seen as a bit of a spammer.

Build up your connections over days, weeks, months. Like anything of value in social marketing it takes time to grow. Now once you start to twitter or read others tweets you’ll see posts like this or this. And you’ll realize that twitter also has it’s own “language” or way of calling attention, passing on or contacting directly. And that’s where this link from Brent Ozar comes in very handy. He gives a great 101 of the various kind of tweets/comments to use.

And before you know it, Twitter has become a part of your social networking.

Next, what applications I use to twitter, yes you can go beyond the website. And meanwhile if you’d like follow me on Twitter here.

And I almost forgot, until I saw Dr. Ward’s tweet, be sure to put in a photo, bio and info otherwise you look like a spammer or worse a digital stalker!

at adtech today

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Chicago, Conference, Twitter, adtech

so I’m at adtech today and will be tweeting the sessions as I see/hear them. Join me on twitter if you’d like:

The Story of the Fail Whale

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Social Networking, Twitter

Sarah Perez over at ReadWriteWeb, has a great summary story of the the designer behind the Fail Whale, Yiying Lu,

And if you want to stop reading now and get your own Fail Whale t-shirt, mug, etc. the visit their zazzle store.

Or if you’d like to see other work and her portfolio, check out Yiying’s site here.

Twitter rate limit back up

Posted by Chris under Twitter

Twitter has increased their rate limit back up to 100. Apparently they are testing it but it’s holding for now, well until Scoble, Guy and Jeremiah heat it up more. But they say that if they do have to drop down they won’t go below 70. Look for a formal announcement from twitter soon.

a hot topic in congress and the senate

Posted by Chris under Technology, Twitter, privacy

This week two hot topics out in Washington, Privacy and Twitter. Well not really twitter but using “new” channels such as Twitter and Qik to communicate with constituents.

I’d suggest you first take a read to Aaron Brazell’s techsailor, in which he as excellent coverage, links, and consolidation on the issue. First I think it’s great that members of congress are taking advantage of tools to better communicate with their constituents and secondly since it’s using blogs, twitter, qik that’s even better.

On Privacy, the senate is taking a look at behavioral targeting and tracking. Or as Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D said, he was concerned that behavioral targeting is like someone following you around from store to store, taking notes on what you do. He said he was especially concerned that a web search for medical terms such as “dementia” and “post-nasal drip,” followed by a search for information on a California trip, followed by a search for a rock group, could create a behavioral profile that could follow him for years.

Hey Senator Dorgan, ever bought a book from Amazon as a gift (and not classified it as a gift), and all of a sudden you’re getting recommendations for books that you really don’t want. But seriously it is a smart issue to look at, I’m just a bit concerned about the understanding of the people looking at it. But AdAge has a short article on the hearing and the washington post has more.

in/out of love with Twitter

Posted by Chris under Friend Feed, Pownce, Twitter, Uncategorized

Once again as the fail whale makes it’s beautiful (yet annoying) flight over the Twitter waters the last few days I have to ask myself why Twitter has such a hold over me.

I also use Pownce (well only sort of), Plurk and am still waiting for a Jaiku invite (anyone) but Twitter seems to be a nexus of the conversation.

A while ago Scoble wrote about the conversation moving to Friend Feed when Twitter is down and earlier today Jeremiah Owyang asked on Friend Feed by Pownce and Jaiku aren’t taking advantage of Twitter’s outage.

And what I’ve found from my own unscientific poking around is that for some people the conversations are moving to Friend Feed. Why, well in Friend Feed not only are comments aggregated there but you can also comment on the posts or posts made on Friend Feed.

Yet Twitter still, as the dude says, “abides.”

Personally I think Friend Feed has a weak interface, which (I and others) don’t help by adding all of our services in. If you just look at mine here, it’s not so bad to follow but on the mega end of Robert Scoble it stars to get a little hard to follow the conversations.

That and the double/triple posts that then happen in other places can be a bit annoying. But that’s less a friend feed issue and more of a what single services do you have on your page as well as Friend Feed

But with all this said I’d recommend getting on Friend Feed if you are not already. It is an amazing aggregator and has more hooks to social, photo and conversation apps than I even use! Now if maybe they’d bring in Russ and David to do some IA/UX work!

Great photo essay on Twitter (their office)

Posted by Chris under Twitter

Thanks MIT Tech review, for the great photo essay of the Twitter space pre $15MM VC funding.