We’ve all been there: You’re at a party hosted by that one fabulous friend, and populated with the best of your mutual circle of friends. The atmosphere is almost carbonated with excitement; the guests’ personalities flawlessly compliment each other; and the conversations that abound are infused with intelligence, caustic wit, and a wide variety of knowledge that ensures the complete absence of any pregnant, awkward pauses. Then, it happens: someone appears who just doesn’t…fit.

A similar phenom happens on Twitter. You’re having conversations with your established Twitter friends, you’re broadcasting useful information, news, or links to your followers, and you’re “engaging your Tribe,” etc., when suddenly, someone begins following you who, much like that previously referenced party guest, just doesn’t fit. This is the person whose follow on Twitter you simply cannot bring yourself to return. This is the follow fail.

Run any number of searches on Google or Alexa and you will arrive at a veritable host of articles offering endless lists of tips on “how to get more followers on Twitter.” What you will not find are lists compiled by Twitter “power users” regarding the major reasons why they will or will not return a Twitter follower’s follow when it happens, and this is my gift to you: “The Top Ten Reasons Why *I* Will Not Follow You In Return On Twitter.”

1. You have no user avatar

More important than whether or not your Twitter profile background is “designed” is how you choose to present yourself in that seemingly insignificant 48×48 pixel square. If that square is empty, impersonal, or otherwise lacking any qualities that will immediately allow me to visually associate it with you, that is an immediate Follow Fail. If I am going to build a Twitter relationship with you, I want to see you, or your brand, and not, however humorous I may find it, a screen capture of a magical leoplurodon.

2. You list no location, no website, or no bio

These fields take two seconds to populate; it would behoove you to take those two seconds to populate them.

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3. Your “website” listed is a MySpace profile

I’ll admit it: I had a MySpace profile…until I deleted it a year ago when it became obvious that only teenagers and musicians were still using it. I also had a GeoCities/AngelFire “page”…for my very first website when I first got on the Internet in 1994. If the Twitter user in question happens to be an actual teenager, or musician whose MySpace presence truly works for them, then fine. But I tend to pass over those users whose proffered web presence is, well, clearly doing it wrong.

It doesn’t take much these days to establish a web presence that seems genuine and thoughtful, and appears to intend to attract and build an online community based on the content it provides. AngelFire pages simply don’t communicate that.

4. You’re following over 1,000 users, have 20 followers, and no updates

Who, aside from those running Twitter apps that automatically follow and unfollow followers, would add these Twitter users? While I may every so often and uncharacteristically give these users a chance, simply to see what sort of content, if any, they may eventually provide, the gratuitous mention of any higher-profile Twitterer or web-famous personality means little more to me than that you were properly able to spell “Calacanis” or “Kawasaki.”

5. Your profile features any variation of “Internet expert”

While I generally loathe any mention of the word “expert” in a Twitter bio, it is particularly egregious when paired with a Twitter stream of only five updates, or one with a plethora of updates that make me question your “expert” status. You’re an “expert” who is only now tweeting about a Twitter app that everyone else was tweeting about two months ago? How awesome for you! #instantfollowfail

6. Your updates clearly indicate that your Twitter activity is always, only, about pushing your own service/product

Since I do not use Twitter in this manner, I rarely follow any of these users in return, unless said product or service genuinely piques my interest/desire to support it.

7. Your following and my return follow result in a poorly-constructed auto-DM reading, “Thx for the follow! How can I help you get to a 4-Hour Work Week?”

8. Your most recent updates make references to any need to achieve “more Twitter followers”

For me, Twitter is not a shallow popularity contest, it is about forging interesting connections and conversations with other people. My Twitter followers are far more to me than a simple follower count: they are friends, they are colleagues, they are collaborators, they are peers, and they are sources. To follow someone in return whose only intent is clearly to acquire more followers would be to devalue the esteem with which I hold my other followers.

9. Your Twitter stream indicates a propensity for consistent arguing

I am all for intelligent debate on any topic, and I’ve been lucky so far in meeting Twitter followers who are still able to politely debate about a variety of passionate topics without constant and vitriolic argumentation. If your Twitter stream is filled with nothing but mean-spirited opinions and argumentation that only advance your own beliefs and allow no consideration of others’ views, then my Twitter stream is definitely not for you.

10. You do not engage your Twitter followers

Obviously, engaging their followers is not a priority. Twitter is a major platform in social networking and social media, and they aren’t called “social” networking and “social” media for nothing. There are other people out there, and if you are not engaging or interacting with those users who take the time to follow you for whatever reason, that is a huge follow fail in my book.

The three tenets

1. Present a cohesive personal brand, or, if presenting a brand is too much for you, simply present a cohesive sense of yourself

2. Always be consistent in your use of Twitter, i.e., become known for the unique ways in which you use Twitter, and stick with what works for you

3. Engage with your network. Genuine engagement with your network of followers will ultimately ensure that your mobile number is retained, and not “lost,” at the end of that fabulous party, and it will ensure that you don’t (too often) commit any serious follow fails.

First seen on Mashable by Atherton Bartelby

What Is Choice Paralysis?
Is it possible to have too many choices? Most people would say no, the more choices the better; but it’s not true. Give someone too many choices and they are very likely to choose nothing. Think about it for one second, there has probably been countless times in your life where you were indecisive because of too much choice, God knows I have. I am now seeing this happen on countless websites with their social media sharing features.

Examples of Choice Paralysis
Imagine you find this amazing video that you have to share your friends across one of your social networks. You hit the share function on the site, usually below the video, and the image below pops up:

SHARING OVERLOAD. With so many choices people get intimidated, overwhelmed and it then becomes to much of a hassle to share so they abandon their efforts (and your site). Why have so many choices when we all know that there is an 80/20 rule with social media. 80% of what everyone does when sharing content happens on less then 20% of the sites out there. By finding the top 2 or 3 most commonly used share buttons and focusing on those you will cut down on abandonment by 85% or more.

Think of McDonald’s and why that franchise became so successful. No matter where people went they found a familiar and consistent place to eat and they knew what they were getting when they went there. Same thing goes with social media. People are used to one or two sites they frequent and that’s it. Too many choices equals no choice. Too many sites make the error by trying to cater to everyone and every possible choice out there and in the process they end up catering to no one.

YouTube is even guilty of over-sharing. Although they give you a few more share buttons than they should to choose from as you see below, they put the most used buttons in the front so people don’t get too overwhelmed. I mean who uses Myspace anymore…I mean really? 

Best Practice
This part is simple, less is more. Choose the 2 or 3 most commonly used share buttons on your site and that’s it (usually facebook, twitter and email). It’s a proven fact that when you give people too much choice they don’t choose at all. Stay laser focused on this best practice and other consumer experience best practices and you will end up winning in the long run.

You can track referrals from Facebook or Twitter in Google Analytics, but what if you want to track specific links within your social media profiles to measure their effectiveness? For example, what if I want to see how many people visit pamorama.net by clicking on my Twitter profile link? This tutorial will teach you the simple steps you need to take — and this method can be used in conjunction with any of your social profiles: Facebook, LinkedIn, or the legion of others.

1: Create a trackable link

Head over to Google’s URL Builder to create a URL that can be tracked separately in Google Analytics. Fill in the spaces as indicated in this screenshot with information about your social media profile:

2: Shorten your trackable link

Google’s URL Builder will create a very long URL, so it’s a good idea to shorten it with one of the many available online shorteners. For the example below, I used bit.ly, but any of them will do the trick:

3: Add your shortened trackable link to your social media profile

You’ve created a trackable link and shortened it — now you need to add it to the the social media profiles you want to track.

4: Track your URL in Google Analytics beginning the next day

Since you used Google’s URL Builder, the link will be tracked automatically in Google Analytics each time someone clicks on on it. You’ll be able to see your referrals by going toGoogle Analytics -> Traffic Sources -> Campaigns. Google Analytics takes about a day to begin reporting the referrals.

First seen on thecustomercollective.com March 23, 2010 by Pam Dyer

What are the most effective twitter posts you can send to your followers? It’s a good question right? Everyone is still trying to measure social media efforts and its impact on their specific businesses. How do we know when we tweet that we are sending the most effective message to our followers? What are we using to measure this with? So after over a year of testing I have some answers to these questions that continue to prove themselves correct time and time again.

The # 1 Most Effective Tweet
The most effective tweet you can send is a twitpic.com or tweetphoto.com link. The click through rate (CTR) is five to ten times greater then any other link you can post to your followers. Sharing your life through photos with your followers creates more of a connection due to the voyeur in all of us. We want to see what you are talking about. It’s as close to real time as it gets, just like facebook life-stream updates tweet photos are addicting. It’s the same reason US Weekly is so popular. A company wanting to leverage this high CTR could build their own Tweet photo sharing location so that said company does not lose the value of the tweet by driving it to somewhere other then their own site.

The # 2 Most Effective Tweet
The next best type of post is one with an actually link to the site you are trying to drive people. Some might think the link shortening services such as bit.ly or tinyurl.com would be best to save room; not always true. By using the link shorteners you are not allowing your followers insight as to where you are driving them. Not only do you followers not know where your sending them but you get absolutely no SEO value due to the link not having your domain in it anymore. A good solution here would be for companies to build their own custom link shorteners, this would address both issues quite nicely.

Of course the next best choice is using bit.ly,  tinyurl.com or ow.ly tags to shorten your links. Not only does it give you the ability to track how many clicks are happening (instant gratification) it also gives you the ability to fit more verbiage into your tweet. Obviously explaining where your link is going to drive your followers is crucial to earn their trust so be as descriptive as possible. This is also your chance to get back that SEO value but mentioning the URL to your site (example: “Watch this on youtube.com).

Street Creds Tweet
The last tweet you can give your followers is a regular update with no links in it at all. In some cases this could be an epic tweet where your followers re-tweet your comment like crazy. Most of the time these tweets are just funny little quirky things you might come up with that are wicked clever (yeah I am from the East Coast). FML is a common topic along with trending topics you can then re-tweet with your own two cents to spice it up.

Over Tweet = Bad Times
Twitter etiquette is one of the most commonly miss-understood and abused problems we face in the constant chatter that is going on. Obviously the worst thing you can do is give everyone an update on everything you are doing at every moment of your day (Example: “brushing my teeth.” “I am hungry.”) don’t be that guy or girl. Engage in communication with your followers back and fourth, Twitter is not a one way communication ticker (although some use it as that). Most of all have fun and be social.

A lot of people still haven’t figured out Facebook Fan Pages yet. They go ahead and make these Fan Pages and expect them to grow by themselves. The thing that most people miss in the equation is that, this is social marketing which means there has to be engagement on both fronts. A Facebook Fan Page needs to be strategically planned out in advance in order to make it work. Here are a few things you can do to make your fan page grow organically and when I say organically it means you aren’t paying to market your fan page.

Feature A Fan – Contest
This is one of the strongest methods of growing your fan base. You originally start off with any fan page by inviting mostly your own friends. Now that some of your friends are fans to this page, how do you get their friends to want to fan the page? You get the fans you already have to become little ambassadors to your page by having a virtual contests. When you “Feature A Fan” you are acknowledging them as the winner by calling them out as a “featured fan” in the post of the day which goes out to all of the other fans. 

This might seem trivial to you but the users can’t get enough.You eventually will get people “liking” the posts, commenting on the posts enough for their friends to take notice and come check out what that page is all about. They then get involved in the conversation that is happening on your page and become fans themselves. Everyone wants to be a featured fan so they keep trying to win whatever contest you are having by posting their answers, commenting and “liking” posts. All of this social interaction eventually leads to more and more people fanning your page. A company that does this well is Crackle a company I just happen to work for ; )

Giveaways
Of course another aspect to a contest is obviously SWAG (stuff worth actually getting). If you have something to give away like a t-shirt, hats, beer mugs, PlayStation 3′s. People love free things, even if its the most mundane objects you would be surprised at what people will do for free SWAG. The better the item the more people who will become a fan of your fan page and participate in the conversation. These users are not nearly as valuable to the conversation because you are incentivising them with a tangible object. As soon as its gone they stop interacting. You need to continue to have these giveaways every month so you don’t lose their interest.

Whats The Best Solution?
Using a combination of both ”Feature A Fan” and product giveaways will net you the most users in the shortest amount of time. Both users act completely different so you need to cater to both in different ways. As long as you have two different approaches planned out to these very different fan bases then you should see your fan page start to grow exponentially.

Adding Twitter Into The Mix
You can also leverage your twitter following to your advantage by using twitter as an extension to your contests. You can extend your reach and push users back to your fan page with twitter or you can hold a completely separate contest via twitter and grow your following base there. In this case we know that twitter users act completely different then Facebook users do so you need to figure out what best works for you and what you’re trying to build and accomplish.

In 2009 we saw exponential growth of social media. According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to outpace MySpace. So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that’s my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year? In no particular order:

1. Social media begins to look less social
With groups, lists and niche networks becoming more popular, networks could begin to feel more “exclusive.” Not everyone can fit on someone’s newly created Twitter list and as networks begin to fill with noise, it’s likely that user behavior such as “hiding” the hyperactive updaters that appear in your Facebook news feed may become more common. Perhaps it’s not actually less social, but it might seem that way as we all come to terms with getting value out of our networks — while filtering out the clutter.

2. Corporations look to scale
There are relatively few big companies that have scaled social initiatives beyond one-off marketing or communications initiatives. Best Buy’s Twelpforce leverages hundreds of employees who provide customer support on Twitter. The employees are managed through a custom built system that keeps track of who participates. This is a sign of things to come over the next year as more companies look to uncover cost savings or serve customers more effectively through leveraging social technology.

3. Social business becomes serious play
Relatively new networks such as Foursquare are touted for the focus on making networked activity local and mobile. However, it also has a game-like quality to it which brings out the competitor in the user. Participants are incentivized and rewarded through higher participation levels. And push technology is there to remind you that your friends are one step away from stealing your coveted “mayorship.” As businesses look to incentivize activity within their internal or external networks, they may include carrots that encourage a bit of friendly competition.

4. Your company will have a social media policy (they might enforced it)
If the company you work for doesn’t already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year. From how to conduct yourself as an employee to what’s considered competition, it’s likely that you’ll see something formalized about how the company views social media and your participation in it.

5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline
With approximately 70 percent of organizations banning social networks and, simultaneously, sales of smartphones on the rise, it’s likely that employees will seek to feed their social media addictions on their mobile devices. What used to be cigarette breaks could turn into “social media breaks” as long as there is a clear signal and IT isn’t looking. As a result, we may see more and/or better mobile versions of our favorite social drug of choice.

6. Sharing no longer means e-mail
The New York Times iPhone application recently added sharing functionality which allows a user to easily broadcast an article across networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Many websites already support this functionality, but it’s likely that we will see an increase in user behavior as it becomes more mainstream for people to share with networks what they used to do with e-mail lists. And content providers will be all too happy to help them distribute any way they choose. These are a few emerging trends that come to my mind — I’m interested to hear what you think as well, so please weigh in with your own thoughts. Where do you see social media going next?

First seen on http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/11/six_social_media_trends.html

Getting In Touch With People From Your Past
Seeing I have been in the online social space since 2003 I am used to communicating with people from my past and present. People from my childhood getting in touch with me to say hi and to see how I am doing along with people from my present wanting to know more about me. I am completely fine with that but in some circles I am in the minority. So recently some people I know, people who don’t operate in the online social sphere have been complaining to me and this is what they had to say, “This person from when I was a kid is trying to get in touch with me over Facebook, WTF do they want? Don’t they know if I wanted to get back in touch with them I would have by now?” Now this wasn’t just from one or two people, this was from at least 20 or more who I have heard discuss this very topic.

I was kind of surprised by what these people had to say, especially seeing they are the ones who signed themselves up for these social networks in the first place. These are the same people who held out till the last second to get a Myspace account and are now having to switch to Facebook because we all know that Facebook killed the Myspace star. With the migration to Facebook you are no longer anonymous. People can’t just make up some weird name of phrase and have that as your alter ego shielding you in the shadow of anonymity. So the once a upon-a-time Myspacer’s who had a hard time entering the social profile world to begin with due to their over active paranoia on personal info on the web are now struggling hard with the idea of not only being on the web but also being “themselves” on the web. Even if you are not online and you stayed away from the social networks your information is still online. Companies like Intelius, PeopleFinders and ZabaSearh have and openly distribute your personal information online for years.

Understanding the flow of information on the web is crucial to having this data work for you and not against you. Setting up these social networks allows you to control the information that is out in the world. Would you rather have someone find a record through intelius on you (which shows your former addresses, people related to you, their ages etc) or would you like them to see and find you on Facebook first? In most cases the Facebook profile is the one you want them to see. You crafted it, put the right pictures into it and filled out the information on it hence you are controling that message. Much like a proactive PR firm would do, you are telling the story before someone else gets the chance too. Not only that but most use Facebook now as a people search function and only when they can’t find who they are looking for they turn to google and other services to find you (Forty/Love – Facebook is killing it).

So yes, these free social networks, the ones where you can stay in communication with all the people you want to talk to in your life, all in one place now comes with a price, the price of being yourself online for the whole world to find. Funny thing is your information was always online even if you weren’t; might as well control the message.