Daniel M. Clark Releases the Big Book of Spam

We have all received those ridiculous spam emails with outrageous subject lines, well Daniel M. Clark did something that most of us don’t do, he didn’t delete them, no he actually encouraged more and more of them.  Why would anyone sane do this you may wonder.  Daniel took the subject lines from these emails and compiled them into an absolutely hysterical book.  Read more

Kansas City Events

Kansas City Local meetups – whose attending?  I will be at all three, if you are interested in chatting before, after or during, email me at aunesty |at| rolet dot com. Read more

The basics in starting in the social networking world online Part I:

1. You need a well written synopsis of your company, whether that is just your site, or a corporation. This will be used in various forms on a multitude of sites.

Details to include:

• Who Founded?
• When Founded?
• Why Founded?
• What makes your company special/different?
• Location
• Growth
• Future Plans
• Key Employees – their roles

2. Images that represent your company. These can be any mix of screen shots, to logos, to employees, to your store front. The more to choose from, the better

3. Account Setups:

a. Wikipedia

b. Twitter

c. Facebook Group Page – if relevant for your brand

1. Do you have a forum?

2. Are you a membership based site?

3. Is your consumable a product that brings people together? (i.e. concerts, wine tastings…)

d. MySpace Page – again if relevant to your brand

e. A Blog

f. All employees on LinkedIn

g. Ning Social Networking for your site – again if relevant only

h. Forums that are relevant to your brand or business type, if you can’t offer advice then you shouldn’t join – it is that simple, if there is a question about this, then DON’T join.

i. Plus a few of the many more social networking apps, i.e. dig, stumbleupon, youtube, flickr…

1. Be detailed on your profile pages, but be honest. Honest about who your company is and what it does. Give your profile pages some personality as well, after all there is a real person filling it out and posting to your account. Both Comcast and SouthWest Airlines Twitter representatives do an excellent job of being a voice for their company, but both do it with personality.
2. Put some time into developing your pages, do not just use the standard every day profile layout that comes with each of these apps. Build your CSS, and images to differentiate yourself and your brand.
3. Acquire friends and followers, I know it is not as easy as it sounds. Ways to do this:
   1. Your companies employees
   2. Personal friends on these different apps
   3. Employees friends
   4. Former co-workers and associates
   5. Vendors or business contacts
   6. Family members if need be
   7. If you have a membership based site, invite your members to communicate with you via these various apps
   8. Your customers, let them know it is a safe place to voice their opinions as well
   9. Geographic target, most of these apps allow for searching other users based upon location
   10. Related groups, look at their membership list and see who fits your users profile, invite them to join your group. Be VERY careful with this though, DO NOT spam people. None of us like getting spammy invitations.
   11. Tell others about these apps, through your newsletter, your website, twitter, on the various apps link to your other social apps.

Ok so now you have your groups, friends & followers, now I bet you are wondering what do I do to entertain them all? In what order? I am going to tell you how I do it, and if this doesn’t work for you, then develop your own system and routine.

New Blog Posts:

1. Post on your Blog
2. Twitter about your blog post – post a link
3. Add the first paragraph of your blog post to your MySpace and Facebook pages, link to your blog to read the rest.
4. Post a link to your blog post on your Ning Page Profile – again with some teaser content.
5. Add the title of the blog post and a few sentence synopsis to your wikipedia page

Forum Postings:

1. FIRST and foremost – NEVER spam a forum with your links – this is the golden rule
2. Spend some time each day, to start, with two to three forums, and read what others are asking and saying.
3. Make sure your personality will fit in with that community before you post
4. Remember most established forums have a hierarchy and if it is a good forum, they will have a “family” sense about them as well
5. Do not butt in and start giving advice immediately
6. Your first post should be an introduction of who you are
7. Establish yourself as someone who wants to participate – DO NOT go overboard with this, otherwise you WILL be seen as creepy
8. Answer questions and give advice where it is fitting, without being very self promoting
9. As you establish yourself as a part of the forums community, trust will be built and you will make “friends” who you will end up joining their social apps and vice versa

I think this is enough to keep you busy for at least a week as of right now, I will add Part two next week…How to interact with your friends and followers…