Social Media | Mason Media Today

Streamlining Your URL’s

June 2, 2011 By Mason 1 Comment

In my opinion, URL’s are digital real estate because once they have been reserved, they’re gone! To keep your websites/blogs as streamlined as possible it’s no longer enough to see if your URL is available only for your website. I recommend to my clients to check their URL with LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook as well BEFORE they purchase their domain.

For example, lets say your new website idea is “MyBusiness.com” and let’s pretend that specific URL was available for purchase. Before you purchase it, make sure you go to Twitter first and see if “Twitter.com/MyBusiness” is available too. Then, go to Facebook and see if Facebook.com/MyBusiness is taken and so on. If you can find the right wording or phrasing that is not only available for your main website, but also available on various social media networks, it will create a clean, simple and familiar brand online across your various networks. It will also make it easy for people to find you on those networks.

If the URL you’re desiring doesn’t bring anything up on Facebook and Twitter, it doesn’t guarantee that the URL is not reserved, but the odds are definitely good if nothing loads up on the page. I would check in this order: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube then LinkedIn. If it looks like the URL is available, create it on Twitter and YouTube first. Once you see that it’s available, then go ahead and purchase your main domain URL. Facebook is tougher, because even if the URL doesn’t show up initially, it doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t reserved it necessarily. You will have to wait until you have launched your page and attained 25+ Fans before you can confirm the availability.

May I make another suggestion in regards to your choice of URL? I recommend doing your best to find a URL with .COM (as opposed to .ORG, .NET, etc). People are more familiar with .COM and usually assume that’s where your website is at. I have been involved with a .ORG website, and many people typed in our URL after hearing about the website from us, but then ended it with .COM and had trouble finding us.

The simpler you can keep your various URL’s, the stronger your association between your brand and your social media sites you will have.

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media

Make Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out

May 19, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

Remember that LinkedIn profile you created and never went back to??? Well, last week I showed you a simple way to get connected to new targeted LinkedIn members. Today I want to show you how to spruce up your profile. You can make your profile stand out from the crowd by adding a YouTube video to your profile. Most LinkedIn profiles do not have videos (most LinkedIn users don’t even know you can have videos on your profile). Even if you do not have your own self-produced video on YouTube, you can find a video that relates to your industry to give people more information regarding what you’re all about.If you do have your own video on YouTube, LinkedIn will become one more avenue to bring exposure to your video, get your information out there, and grow your number of views.

Step 1: If you do not have your own YouTube account or gmail account sign-up for a new gmail account (it’s free, you can have all mail forwarded to your main email address, plus google is always coming out with interesting apps that you’ll be able to take advantage of). To sign up go here: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

Step 2: Once you’re signed in to your YouTube or gmail address go to: https://docs.google.com/

Step 3: From there go to “create a new presentation”:

Step 4: Under the “Insert” menu click on the “Video” option:

Step 5: Search for the the YouTube video you want and select it. Do a little re-sizing and save your document:

Step 6: Stay signed-in to your google account, open a new window, and sign-in to your LinkedIn account. Under the “More” drop-down menu go to “Get More Applications.” In the Applications menu select “Google Presentation” and add it to your profile. Now go back to the “More” drop-down menu and select “Google Presentation.”

Step 7: Your presentation should appear in the presentation list for you to select. Select your presentation and your done!

Your video will only appear to LinkedIn members who are sign-in to LinkedIn. I hope you found this post helpful. If you run into any snags or have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below…

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Social Media, Video Content, Video Tips, Tricks, & Info Tagged With: LinkedIn, Social Media, Video content, Video on LinkedIn, YouTube, YouTube on LinkedIn

Getting Tweets From Celebrities

March 24, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

I am constantly sending out DM’s to Twitterville offering to answer any questions someone might have about social media. I received one question that was interesting and I thought I’d share it with you on my blog.

@Setnakt asked me, “How do you get someone famous to respond to you?” I told him that I honestly didn’t know since I have neither been contacted by someone famous on social media nor I have I attempted to be contacted by someone famous on social media. Since I didn’t know I posted the question on Mason Media’s Facebook page and Twitter account.

Neste Event Marketing replied to the question and shared the following:

“This is a great question. Neste is a company that does entertainment buying and festivals and concert events all around the country. We do a lot of interaction with artists based on our scope. My best advice for anyone inside the entertainment industry or out of it would be to start with the artists that have a smaller fanbase and work your way up. This also raises your Klout score! Retweeting videos and photos is always exciting for your users as well Hope that helps!”

Thank you NesteEventMarketing for taking the time to share your thoughts with us! I also want to thank @RodMBryan who retweeted this question to his followers as well. He is now on our Retweeters List.

I also tracked down an article entitled, “How To Get Celebrities To Tweet You.” It recommended some helpful tips such as “timing your tweets and waiting until you seem them tweeting RIGHT NOW before you send them a message.” There were some other helpful hints in the entire article which you can read by clicking here.

Early on, many people started using Twitter so they could “follow” favorite celebrities. They’re presence and interaction on Twitter has really added to it’s popularity. Getting a tweet from a favorite famous person would definitely add to the tweeting experience, not to mention, get some exposure for your profile and content.

Hope you found this interesting. What are you thoughts?

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Twitter

SocialOomph Alternative: Tweeter Karma

March 23, 2011 By Mason 3 Comments

Now that SocialOomph is charging for Twitter Automation services, such as “Auto-Follow”, I want to offer another alternative that is free. Tweeter Karma (known as Twitter Karma before Twitter slapped their wrist) provides some helpful functions for your Twitter account for free.

Tweeter Karma allows you to organize your Twitter account for simple maintenance. As you can see in the pictures below, you can look at one segment of your account and then make decisions appropriately. What do I use it for? I’m glad you asked : )

I use Tweeter Karma to practice good Twitter etiquette, which is to follow those who are following you. I can easily bring up people who are following me but, for whatever reason, I haven’t followed them back. Then I can scroll down, select all accounts, and do a bulk follow to show some Twitter love.

(right click and “view image” for full-size view)

I also use Tweeter Karma to see who I am following that isn’t following me (if I have recently followed people within the last 24-48 hours I don’t do this because I want to give people a reasonable amount of time to return the favor). Once Tweeter Karma shows this cluster of accounts, I can go through them and unfollow them. This helps me keep a healthy balance between my following and followers which is good for your Twitter ranking and influence. It’s also helpful when starting out a new account since you can’t follow more than 2,000 people without having 2,000 followers.

Tweeter Karma isn’t as automated as SocialOomph’s auto-follow service, but it is a free and efficient alternative to those who are looking for one.

SocialOomph Begins Charging For Key Services

SocialOomph Alternative: True Twit

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Social Oomph, Social Oomph now charges. SocialOomph isn't free, SocialOomph, SocialOomph alternative, Tweeter Karma, Twitter Karma

SocialOomph Alternative: TrueTwit

March 22, 2011 By Mason 2 Comments

As I mentioned in my previous article, since SocialOomph is now charging $3.97 a month ($47.64 a year) for their Twitter Automation features, I wanted to talk about some alternatives to consider this week. Today’s alternative isn’t free, but it serves some significant purposes and it’s cheeper than SocialOomph.

TrueTwit is a Twitter Validation service used by many. The free version of TrueTwit sends a validation DM when someone follows to make sure it’s an actual human being. The initiator then has to click on the validation link to confirm their place in the world of humanity.

For $20 a year, you can get their premium service. I setup this service on every Twitter account I create. The premium service will automatically validate your account without having to manually click on the link when following someone. There are currently over 51,000 TrueTwit members and when you begin to follow hundreds of people a day, you will run into them and their validation service. The premium automation then becomes a huge time-saver!

One of the other features of the premium service is that you can auto-follow accounts that not only follow you, but they pass TrueTwit’s analysis of whether or not it’s a SPAM account. Thus, you have replaced the SocialOomph auto-follow service. The $20 annual payment works out to $1.66 a month, almost half of SocialOomph’s cost. You can also write a custom validation message to send to your new followers as well.

Another aspect of the premium service is that you can automatically unfollow users that have unfollowed you. There are several more services included in the premium package which I will not dive into right now.

So this is one alternative to replace SocialOomph’s former paid service. Like I said, even when I used SocialOomph’s free service, I still used TrueTwit as well. I recommend adding it to your arsenal of Twitter tools.

I will post more articles this week on SocialOomph alternatives…

Thanks for stopping by!

SocialOomph Now Charging For Key Services

SocialOomph Alternative: Tweeter Karma

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Social Oomph, Social oomph Twitter Automation Features, True Twit, TrueTwit

Social Oomph Begins Charging For Key Services

March 21, 2011 By Mason 3 Comments

Social Oomph Begins Charging For Key Services

Social Oomph has been a favorite tool for serious Twitter users for several years now. I have used Social Oomph’s free services every time I’ve setup a Twitter account for myself or a customer.

Social Oomph has always offered “Premium” services that they charge for, but they’ve also offered a package of services for free as an alternative. There were two key Twitter services in the “Free Package” that I really appreciated:

1. Sending Welcome DM’s Automatically

2. Auto-Following Each Person Who Follows You

I’ve leaned on these services to enable myself and my clients to build relationships on Twitter and practice good Twitter etiquette.

Unfortunately, Social Oomph has promoted these services into the “Fee” category..The cost for these “Twitter Automation Features” is $3.97. Granted, it’s not a lot of money, but it’s about $3.97 more a month compared to what I am used to.

What I think (allow me to “stress” the word “think”) happened, is Social Oomph bought out a competitor, called “Tweet Later.” Tweet Later also offered similar services for free. With their main competition gone, Social Oomph currently has clear sailing to charge for these features.

I’ve already had people contacting asking me about free alternatives. I’ll be posting more articles this week on this very topic, presenting some different options in light of these changes by Social Oomph.

SocialOomph Alternative: TrueTwit

SocialOomph Alternative: Tweeter Karma

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Auto DM's, Auto Follow, Auto Welcome DM's, Social Oomph, Social Oomph Begins Charging For Key Services, Social oomph Twitter Automation Features, Twitter Automation, Twitter Automation Features

Watch What You Tweet

March 15, 2011 By Mason Leave a Comment

Gilbert Gottfried got fired as the voice of the AFLAC duck because he Tweeted inappropriate jokes referencing Japan’s Tsunami on Friday. AFLAC, the insurance giant, does 75% of it’s business in Japan. Gottfried is not the first casualty of poor tweet selection. Professional athletes have been cut from teams over their tweets, and normal citizens have been sued for harassment on social networking sites such as Twitter.

What’s the lesson? Watch what you tweet.

In the wake of being fired over his tweets, Gottfried has gained 12,000 more followers on his Twitter page!!!

What’s the lesson? Controversy works well for social media.

I wonder what Gilbert would rather have? The 12,000 Twitter followers or the six-digit contract for a couple of days worth a work every year??? I know what I would take.

So all that is left to ask is, “Who should be the new voice of the AFLAC duck?”

Filed Under: Twitter

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