Today, I received this helpful reminder from Plaxo.

Proves my point. The only messages that I get from Plaxo are connection requests and birthday reminders for others in my network there. You would think that they would have figured out that I know when my own birthday is.

Time to send myself an eCard!

From the Philadelphia Business Journal events page…
http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/event/8371

Join the Philadelphia Business Journal and social media expert Howard Yermish on September 29 for a Supercharge Your Sales Seminar to build your business, your circle of influence and your exposure.

When: Tuesday, September 29, 8:00am-10:15pm
Where: 601 Information Systems, 601 White Horse Road, Voorhees, NJ 08043

Make More Money with the Philadelphia Business Journal
Learn how to turn our business news into new business for you! During this seminar, you will learn how to unearth key information from the Philadelphia Business Journal in less than 30 minutes per week, how to recognize sales leads within news stories, how to warm up cold leads, how to discover new networking opportunities and how to PROFIT from every issue of the Business Journal.

Social Media Workshop with Howard Yermish
You have read enough to realize that social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) have changed the way we communicate, giving us powerful tools to connect with customers, get powerful referrals and even close business. In this workshop, you will learn the strategies to use the social networks without looking like a spammer or broken record. Howard Yermish will show you the steps to get yourself running with the social networks, how to become a power-user on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and present an action plan so you can do it in just 10 minutes a day.

More details are on the way so stay tuned…

Here are the basic steps:

1. Sign into Twitter in one tab or window of your browser.
2. Sign into Facebook in another tab or window of your browser.
3. Now go to www.facebook.com/twitter and click the big green button in the middle.
4. Select your page and click the “Link to Twitter” button. If you manage more than one page, you will see all of the pages listed. If you want to link different pages to different profiles, make sure that you are signed into the appropriate Twitter account.
5. You will be directed over to Twitter to authorize the link. Double check that it is the right account, then click the “Allow” button.
6. You will be bounced back into Facebook and you should see the message “You are now sharing your Page updates on Twitter as hyermish,” or in your case, your Twitter account name.
7. Select the options for posts to Twitter (status updates, photos, etc.) and click “Save Changes.”

That is it! Post a status update on the Facebook page, then check Twitter to test, and you should be all set.

Update: If you read my previous post about automating your status, this is the actual exception. Posts to Facebook Pages are typically broadcasts out to your network. People generally don’t “lifestream” on Facebook pages. Just make sure that you are listening on Facebook and Twitter.

No wonder they feel overwhelmed. Here are two quick tips to make this simpler.

Don’t Try to Drink from the Fire Hydrant

Whether it is Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter, don’t try to read every single post there (a.k.a. Drinking from the fire hydrant). Yes, you will miss things, but that is okay.

If you are on Facebook, just scan down the latest news feed and check your inbox for messages, notifications and updates. The first time it might take 10-15 minutes, but then you are caught up and it will take 5 minutes. I typically do this twice a day, once in the morning and once before the end of the work day. I usually update my status once a day, although sometimes more from my iPhone if I’m early for a meeting or stuck somewhere. I like to post comments to other status updates

On Twitter, just scan down the first page or two of posts for people that you follow. Remember that Twitter is “real time” and once something is more than a day or even a few hours, the value drops. I also use Twitter search to follow particular keywords about my interests.

Use a Timer

Whether it is a desktop widget or a kitchen timer, set one. And while this may seem very simple and you will give me the, “I’m too smart or disciplined or whatever to use a timer,” line, this very simple solution will help you enjoy the social networks without feeling like you are flushing your time down the drain.

Here is the simple strategy. Set the timer for 10 minutes. Open Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn. Go to town until the timer rings and immediately close the browser (tab) when the timer goes off.

So no more excuses. Use the social networks to build your connections between people, but don’t drink from the fire hydrant.

Then we returned to reality. And this is an important lesson for social media. Actually, two lessons.

Lesson 1: You might be a Twitter expert, but you cannot repair the transmission in a 1998 BMW 7 series.

It is true that on Twitter anyone can say anything. But if you pretend to know more than you actually do, or try to beat up on someone just because you can type, you are going to strike out. Yes, the Internet “democracy” is such that the “crowd” can determine your fate.

But if you step up to the plate against Roger Clemens, chances are that the 7-time Cy Young award winner will strike you out. Unless you are Jimmy Rollins.

Lesson Learned: Regardless of the context, you are who you are, no more, no less.

Lesson 2: Stake out your social media real estate.

And if you dawdle, you might find that RogerClemens.com is a spam site and @RogerClemens (Twitter) is owned by a Roger Clemens hater. Oops.

And I’m finding myself using it less because of that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn and I consider it the best business social network. But the latest changes have less to do with business and more to do with copying Facebook.

The problem is this: if LinkedIn gets to be too much like Facebook, then I’d rather just use Facebook.

So if I were LinkedIn, I’d be looking for the ways that I’m not like Facebook, and amplifying those features. For example, I’d play up the “Answers” section and let the community rate the posts as a way to combat spam and or junk answers. Don’t just let the person asking the question mark answers as best, let the community vote for the best answers.

What are your suggestions?

And she has a good point.

For businesses that are short on time, perhaps focusing on conversations on Twitter is more valuable than developing readership on a company blog.

But of course, there is a downside.

Twitter is about the moment, the “right now.” In three months, Twitter posts have lost their power and relevance. And Twitter posts don’t help significantly with search engine optimization.

So take a step forward. Rather than Twitter replacing the blog, let Twitter inspire the blog.

If you are short on words for your blog, here is something to try:

1. Go to http://search.twitter.com/ and search for your Twitter ID or keyword.
2. Browse through the list and click some of the “Show Conversation” links.
3. If you are inspired, pick the key Twitter post, take a screen capture, and post to your blog.

Do you already do this? Share some comments and links. And thanks to @coreyfreeman, @DanteExplorer and @darkolives for the conversation.

• How Networking is Supposed to Work

Here is my 2 cents to add:

1. Be yourself on the social networks.
2. Real connections happen if you try.
3. Listen actively.
4. Help people and ask for help.
5. Let the universe work out the details.

The story is how we announced the job posting, which started several years ago. It started when I signed up for LinkedIn when it was a very young service.

Over time, I meticulously built my network. I focused on powerful business connections. Some people criticized me for not connecting to everyone, but I had a standard which I adhere to for those connections. (I use other networks, like Facebook and Twitter to connect with more people.)

And important to this puzzle, I remain visible. I don’t hide. Rather, I saw LinkedIn as an opportunity to share my knowledge, help people where I could, and write testimonials where my words could be powerful.

So the other day, we posted a job on LinkedIn. Within minutes, the flood began.

I reached out to my network, and the people reached out to their respective networks.

The quality of the applicants that we received proves the point.

Afterthought
If you are a recruiter or in the staffing business and you are not yet embracing LinkedIn, you are very late to the party. Here is your invitation to start now.

Afterthought #2
Businesses are now playing catch-up to try to leverage the value of LinkedIn. I saw its value and started building a little at a time several years ago. Perhaps you should ask me what I’m building next.

Just because you can join Facebook or Twitter, doesn’t mean that it is appropriate for your business.

Instead of the typical bandwagon approach, take two steps back and gain some perspective.

• Who are your customers?
• What are the conversations around your product or service or expertise?
• Where are the conversations happening?
• How can you shape these conversations to benefit your customers and your business?
• Why will your actions be relevant to your business?

Knowing the basics does not equal doing the basics. So talk with one of your favorite customers and really focus on listening. Let them direct the conversation and you might learn where the opportunities really are.

Then you can start developing your social media strategy.

Download the full Interview with Lisa Dilg

Tips from Lisa Dilg, PerkettPR

@pprlisa – http://twitter.com/pprlisa

1. Find people that you respect and see who they follow. Click on those profile pages, see if anyone is interesting and engaging in conversations, and follow. Make sure to introduce yourself.
2. Watch for a while to see what people are talking about, and then jump in.
3. Monitor your brand using Twitter Search and address any issues publicly so people can see you fixing problems in public.
4. Answer every @ reply and engage in conversations.
5. There are so many reporters that are asking for information for the media, so use Twitter Search to find relevant conversations.
6. Share ideas and ask for advice with other professionals in your industry.
7. For companies, make sure that you are not just talking about your news. Don’t talk at people, talk with people. Participate in the conversation.
8. Remember that everything that you post on Twitter can be searched forever.

Special thank you to Lisa for sharing her knowledge and her time. Make sure to post your comments below or send me a reply on Twitter @hyermish.

There are several workshops throughout the day at the expo, featuring my friends Sandy Spadaro and Christine Bizarro. My workshop, Using Social Networks to Promote Your Business, will be at 3pm. The workshop is free to anyone who attends the expo.

You can get free tickets in advance of the show by registering online.

I look forward to seeing you there!

• Who are you? And why should I follow you?

In a nutshell, she wants you to be real. She believes that social networks should be based on human responses to human conversations. Just because you are typing on a computer, doesn’t mean that you can hide behind it. And if all you do is promote and not create a conversation, why should she care.

I couldn’t agree more.

• Nicole Brewer, Digital Journalist from CBS3
• Ron Martin, Executive Editor, BCT, myBCTnow.com
• Joanne Adams & Kristine Brown of The Marathon Group
• Howard Yermish of World Wide Web Communications (me)

The event is this Friday, October 10, 2008 and runs from 8am – 11am at the Enterprise Center in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Complete details and the registration form are available here.

I hope to see you this Friday!

I had help along the way from Gary Vaynerchuk of the Wine Library. I watched over 500 episodes of his Wine Library TV. I learned something in every single one: trust my palate and try new wines.

So for the last two years, I haven’t repeated wines. Every bottle has been something that I haven’t tried yet. The hope was that I would find wines that I preferred. The result was that I enjoy trying new things more than a specifc winery or region or varietal.

So what made Gary Vaynerchuk right? He made a promise, backed it up, and delivered. And did it in a Web 2.0 way.

The result: I am willing to drive 2+ hours each way to go to the Wine Library to purchase wines. Don’t get me wrong, if I can find the wine around the corner, I go there. But part of the whole experience of Wine Library TV has created a loyalty to Gary.

Web 2.0 is not a quick fix. But if you are willing to spend the next two years to multiply your business revenues by tenfold, then Web 2.0 is something to embrace.

But something has shifted over the last 10 years. The customer demographic is more technologically savvy than the business owner demographic.

So how do you tell someone who has brilliantly run a business for 30 years that online social networks are relevant to his or her business? And to make matters worse, they still aren’t totally sold on the effectiveness of the Internet.

Seriously, how do you help someone who is brilliant see the online world through a 27-year-old’s eyes?

Post your suggestions below, or @hyermish me on Twitter.

Networks like Facebook or LinkedIn require that connections be mutual. That is to say if I want to connect to you, you have to accept and then connect to me. So when I “friend” someone or “connect” it is a two-way street.

Twitter is different. On Twitter, you can follow anyone. (At least anyone that has a public profile.) If you want to follow my “tweets” you simply click the “follow” button and you are set. I’ll receive a notification that you are a new follower, but I don’t have to return the favor.

The results are interesting.

Guy Kawasaki and Merlin Mann both have very interesting Twitter streams: useful and fun. Guy followed me back, Merlin didn’t return the favor. But it doesn’t matter. I still like reading both.

There are people who follow my Twitter stream that I don’t follow back. But if there is an opportunity to have a conversation, I will follow back. I’ve even dug into some other interesting conversations to “meet” new “friends” on Twitter.

I’ve had some fun, interesting, educational, goofball conversations with people from the Twitterverse. And some of these conversations have spawned communication beyond Twitter, both email and phone conversations.

But once the conversation becomes two-way, you realize that there are a lot of very good humans out there.

And this “Not a two-way street” that is Twitter has spawned new friendships and even some new poetry.

• Build Your Network Before You Need It

Enter Plurk.

I have to say, the experience of Plurk is quite good. I really enjoy using Plurk – it is actually quite fun. And the timeline interface is a great way to browse through the plurks of others. But after the “work” to get over the hump of Twitter, attracting followers and following interestng people, do I want to start over?

Post your comments below.

What I like about this video is that it is very much an overview of social media, rather than a focus on one particular technology. That might be its weakness as well as I think that it might be just a bit too long, even though it is less than 4 minutes.

My website bookmarks were a mess and they were scattered everywhere. Enter Social Bookmarking with Del.icio.us.

What is the next step? Go to Del.icio.us and sign up for an account. Then to make it interesting, add me to your network. My bookmarks are wide open.

There are literally hundreds (well according to Technorati as of this post about 113 million) blogs out there. So How do you claw your way out of the Long Tail of blogging?

From a recent Q&A…
“I’ve had my blog on business and innovation for 9 months now. It hasn’t been doing badly, but it hasn’t gone viral yet…Are there any smart strategies for clawing out of the long-tail faster than the 1-yard-at-a-time I am able to maintain now? Or is it just a long slog of just keeping at it?”

The simple answer is patience. Start by writing good content – that is the key. Also, link to others with related content and use the trackback links. If you can get a “guest post” with more popular blogs, that will also help.

Many bloggers are not writers, so the content issue usually becomes more challenging over time, typically when you start getting some results with Technorati and Google.

That said, I’ve seen some companies “team blog” (as we are doing here) with several people contributing on a regular basis. This way no single person is burdened with the entire task.

Some additional tips:

1. Personalize your blog – If your blog looks like every other blog out there, some people will assume that you aren’t completely serious about your content. It is definitely worth it to hire a professional to create a custom blog interface. The default templates are overused and stale.
2. Answer every email – Blogs are all about conversation. If someone takes the time to comment on your blog, make sure to continue the conversation and thank the person for the comment.
3. Check Google Analytics for trends – If particular posts on your blog are gaining popularity, continue posting new content about these topics.
4. Be social with your blog – There are a number of plug-ins to help facilitate posts to other sites such as DIGG, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. Make sure to go where your community is going.
5. Don’t get tired - I see blogs that start with fire and then fizzle into the night. I think that after 100 posts, you start to develop a habit. If it is too much work, you may not be cut out to blog. At the very least, pick a schedule and be consistent.
6. Schedule posts – I also schedule posts usually at least 5-10 days ahead of time. This way if I have a couple of busy days with no time to post, I still have things going through the air waves to keep the momentum going. Then when I get a chance to catch up, I don’t feel like my readers (all 2 of them) have gotten bored.

Ed Callahan, one of the panelists, talked about the value of a connection. For Ed, connecting should be meaningful. Yes, he has lots of connections, but he talked about how he has actually met and talked and connected with every person in his contacts. Ed is a very powerful connector.

The discussion reminded me of something that I had previously posted…

3. Only invite people that you know and trust.
If you would feel strange about calling someone on the phone and having a conversation, perhaps you shouldn’t invite that person to connect.

4. Just because someone invites you doesn’t mean you have to accept.
If you don’t know the person well or at all, perhaps you shouldn’t connect. Call the person wanting to connect and schedule a time to have coffee or something to strengthen your relationship.

A few people mentioned that it is useful to have a couple of these “LIONs” in your network as it can sometimes help in the sales process. You simply have access to a larger database. But if the connection is fleeting at best, what is the ultimate value?

A good suggestion that I learned from the event was to add your old email addresses to your profile even if they don’t work anymore. LinkedIn uses these addresses to help make connections with people that you know. This way if someone actually knows you but doesn’t have your new email address, they can still connect with you just by knowing an email address that you once had. Obviously, keep your primary address as your current address.

I just added a couple of old addresses (some very old) and found a few invitations from people who had tried to connect to me but didn’t have my latest (5 years?) email address.

In the real world, none of that is physically possible, which brings to mind Dunbar’s Number.

Dunbar’s number has been popularized as the supposed cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable social relationships: the kind of relationships that go with knowing who each person is and how each person relates socially to every other person.

In simple terms, you can really only maintain a stable relationship with about 150 people. Beyond that, you need help.

The power of the social network is that you aren’t looking for anything beyond casual contact, so the temptation is to add everyone you have ever met to your social network. (Wow! I’m popular now!) And depending on what you are using the network for, this is totally fine and the network database supports this.

LinkedIn is different. It is about reputation, trust and building permission. When you connect to someone on LinkedIn, you are granting and expecting trust and permission. If you abuse that permission, you will get yourself into trouble. Unlike most social networks, LinkedIn seems to embrace Dunbar’s Number at least to me. It is not about quantity, rather quality of the connection.

Perhaps that is why LinkedIn is getting very popular in the business community.

Find popular stories, photos and videos about pet related content. Woof.

And if you are looking for more social networks just for pets: (post more of your favorites in the comments)

• Dogster
• Pawspot
• UnitedDogs and UnitedCats

• Network – not Knowledge – Is Power

Dennis’ point is that with more people using social networks in both personal and business contexts, the network of connections and relationships is becoming an extremely powerful force.

What I’d like to add is that if you combine powerful connections with a high level of expertise on a given subject, you might just become a web 2.0 supernova. And it is even more important to sound your voice in an honest way.

That said, I frequently hear, “Okay, so I have an account and a couple of people have connected to me. What can I do with LinkedIn?”

Recommendations – start by recommending people in your network and then ask to be recommended. You control what appears on your profile, so nobody can bash you. It’s about making others look good and asking for the same in return.

Prospecting – if you are trying to make contact with a particular company, you can search for people who might have connection with a person the company. Once you have created enough connections, you will often find that you are one or two connections away from a potential client. You can then request an introduction or go all old school and pickup the phone to your contact and ask for a referral.

Questions and Answers – LinkedIn has an active Q&A section where members post questions and others reply with answers. Answering questions is a way to show your expertise, as members can mark the answers as “good” or “best” which earns you some LinkedIn “street cred.” I’ve actually gotten some business opportunities for myself and some colleagues as a direct result of answering questions.

Groups – there are a whole bunch of professional organizations, alumni groups, former employee groups, etc. that provide another way to link to members. I prefer this method over trying to connect to everyone on the planet. The groups feature in LinkedIn is still maturing, so keep watch for what happens here.