Social media, social web, marketing and Twitter hints, tips & advice – Liz Hover's Diary of a Web Gal

First, I’ll admit that this is pretty much a duplicate of a post I made today over on the National Screen Institute’s website.

But not entirely.

I don’t think much of Google Buzz, ok?

I love Google, for the record.

The basic premise: Google wants in on the social media thang. Google Buzz is their trump card.

Or something.

This is my comment on the proposition, not the product.

According to Google’s official blog:

Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch.

If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don’t have to use different tools to share with different audiences). Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you’re sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.

So far I’m not that impressed with it – largely because I only use my Gmail accounts to log in to Feedburner, YouTube and a bunch of other Google-operated sites.

I’m also a prolific Twitter and Facebook user and don’t see the sense in adding yet another network to the list.

Sure, I can add my Twitter account so my tweets appear on Buzz but I’d rather folks just follow me on Twitter.

I can see the benefit for regular users of Gmail. Send mail and chat with your pals all in one place. Which makes sense.

Are you using Google Buzz? Let me know what you think.

Thanks to my friend, the wonderful Erica Glasier, for the illustration at the top of this page available under a Creative Commons License.

In the Land of the Website Manager we hear an oft-quoted mantra that we are taught always to adhere to.

Content is king.

This is the biggest beast in the website jungle and not one to be fooled with.

But then along came ‘context’ roaring like a lion demanding to be anyplace, anywhere, anytime.

In the past few days I was lucky enough to read two posts about these topics.

Check out Boagworld writer Colin James Firth who looks at the designer’s approach to a website and how important the content and a professional copywriter are in informing the design.

Then check out this post on TechCrunch about how video is consumed online.

It’s not enough to just have good content.

How do your users find it? And how are they consuming it?

Your content king needs context too.

Honestly.

You have no idea how stupidly excited I am about this.

When I moved to WordPress at the beginning of 2009 I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the Paper Trails WordPress theme by Roy Tank.

I used it on my blog until tonight.

It was a delicious, simple and slightly quirky theme.

It even had a cute wobbly title that moved if you put your mouse over it.

I was in love.

Sadly Roy stopped updating the theme earlier this year so I knew I was running on borrowed time.

I regularly received praise about the Paper Trails design (which I can in NO WAY take credit for). My website visitors were in awe of this lovely theme.

I was in awe of the theme.

But the theme was a little unusual. During a blog challenge earlier this year some folks complained to me that they couldn’t view my website because the post titles were rendered in Flash (but they looked beautiful if you were sensible enough to be using the latest version of Flash).

What this all boils down to is the fact that I KNEW I would have to update my WordPress theme.

And then a miracle happened.

Today I was introduced to a theme that couldn’t have been closer to Paper Trails if it tried.

But it came without the issues.

It was created by Woo Themes.

And IT’S FREE!

I have been helping out a number of online pals with their blog designs over the past ten months or so and have scoured the internet LIKE YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE in search of new and wonderful WordPress templates.

Often I would come across a design that made my heart beat fast because it looked like the kind of thing Diary of Web Gal 2 point oh would obviously use.

Usually it cost dollars that I couldn’t justify.

So, please if you can, imagine my joy when I ACCIDENTALLY found a theme for myself today.

After some hurried and impromptu design work to create a logo, I can now reveal my redesign.

Ta da!

Apologies to those of you who read this link via my Twitter stream. This seemed like such a great article with so much food for thought I had to post it here too.

Noupe – a website I regularly read – posted an article about how the web might look five years from now.

The Future of the Web: Where Will We Be in Five Years? is an insightful look at emerging trends and some that are already sticking.

Some highlights include:

• There are a few unsurprising predictions such as the growing influence and use of social media (a term, some of you will know, I think is silly). What this means is social interaction on the internet will be an even bigger feature of the web spaces we visit.

• Our never-ending fight against spam and fraudulent internet behaviour may well increase but I don’t think we’ll ever really be totally safe from this stuff.

• As a chick who spends a large (some might say, excessive) amount of time online I heartily look forward to better and more online film and TV content.

• And Microsoft’s world domination of our PCs may be over sooner than you think. With Google set to launch a Chrome operating system we’re looking at a virtual online office as our operating systems move online.

This is all very exciting stuff. But as Noupe points out, predictions fly around the internet at the speed of tweets so there’s no telling what the future really holds.

A local design company in Winnipeg sent these videos to us today as part of our Halloween treats.

One word: HILARIOUS.

(And strong language.)

“Fear and risk are vital components for personal and business development.”

I don’t usually tackle something this heavily emotional but today I read a post by Jacob Morgan on fear and risk which totally struck a chord with me.

And before you think I’m going off topic, this is absolutely tied to social media.

Talking about his own risks, Jacob says he one day he threw all his clothes in his car and moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

While I didn’t make an impulse decision, I made a big upheaval in my life in 2003 and emmigrated from the UK to Canada at the tender age of 29.

It was and remains my single most life changing event.

I fantasized about it at first telling myself there’s absolutely no way it would ever happen. But it did. I was more excited and scared than I’ve ever been. And it was by no means easy. In fact it was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done for so many reasons. Yes, there were times when I nearly gave up and headed back to Europe where I’d had a successful marketing and communications career and fabulous friends.

But I stayed. I knew I had to make this new life work because it’s not something you get a second chance at.

Thankfully things eventually fell into place.

I found meaningful work, a wonderful relationship (and my baby Sadie Shih Tzu).

This experience taught me many things which were put into words by Jacob Morgan’s post about the importance of fear and risk.

My dad always told me that the darkest part was just before the dawn. So I’ve tried to live my life knowing that when things are super hard, they can only get better.

Which brings me to social media.

About two years ago I ventured into a new job – I sort of morphed into the job and along with that came myriad new responsibilities and emotions. That job was web manager for the National Screen Institute – Canada (NSI). At the time I was discovering a whole new way of working in the form of Facebook, Twitter and blogging. Each required an element of risk on my part.

And, it seems, I wasn’t alone in my apprehension about being thrust into the online world. To manage social media effectively requires a lot of ’self.’

There are folks I know who still struggle with the idea of a Facebook account (my mother: all this internet stuff is so anti-social.) Their fear comes from different places and sometimes has to do with feeling exposed or simply a lack of understanding.

So I’ve been ‘putting myself out there’ for a couple of years now and it’s become easier and easier.

Then in May 2009 my personal blog was hacked. You can’t get much more of scare than that – I felt violated and wondered who had access to my personal information.

After a couple of days I stopped feeling attacked and found the process of rebuilding my blog to be rather cathartic.

All this to say that for personal and business development you must take risks, put yourself out there, face your fears and even create your own challenges. It’s vital to your growth.

My favourite excerpt from Jacob Morgan’s post is a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt which every marketer should heed:

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”

Photo courtesy of ittybittiesforyou via a Creative Commons Licence

I dunno how many times I utter this phrase but here we go again…

As a web manager your work is never done. A website is never complete. It’s a constantly growing, developing thing.

It’s been over a year since we launched my employer’s website.

And part of my job is to improve that website.

Today we finally had the official ‘launch’ of our shiny new home page and the integration of Facebook Connect, courtesy of our friends at Tactica.

We designed a magazine-style home to show off our content and make our site more accessible.

To streamline our site login, we’ve added Facebook Connect which allows you to log in to our website using your Facebook account. No more creating yet another account.

Of course the success or otherwise of these changes will only be known in time but it’s great feeling to continue to develop our website for the benefit of its users.