If you are new to Twitter, you may scratch your head with all of the #followfriday tweets. This is an organic tradition where you list the people that you enjoy following and want to share with others.

You can track everyone’s suggestions, by using this Twitter search. In addition, you can make the search more sophisticated with advanced search.

For example, in this search, I am looking for all suggestions in Knoxville.

More importantly, whenever I want to make #followfriday suggestions, I often forget if I have suggested someone before. SO, I run this simple search before tapping out my tweet:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+%22%23followfriday%22+from%3A<TWITTERID>

You can use this search by simply replacing <TWITTERID> in the above URL with your own twitter id.

Some Twitter traditions (and yes I avoided twitteritions) are dull, but I enjoy this one as a compliment to the people that you follow. Also, you can use the suggestions to pick up interesting reads.

Sorry. All of that emphasis on page one SERPs of Google may not be the funky cold medina after all. Search Engine Optimization, which is a profession that didn’t exist a few years ago may not exist in a few years. Thus, the modern era of the Internet: professions that don’t exist today may be the top job in 3 years. [check this video for an interesting communication of this phenomena]

In a recent  article, ClickZ likens the current environment to early paid search in  Social Media 2009 = Search 2002

If you’ve been in the interactive advertising business for at least the last five years, you’ll recognize the pitch for social media to be nearly identical to the ones we heard (and made) in 2002 for search. Search ads were fast and cheap to create and dirt cheap. (You didn’t even have to pay unless you got a click!) In the face of a bloated and barely effective display advertising market, search looked to be the best deal in town.

Honestly, I am not predicting that one medium will trump the other, but I believe that a single tool arsenal is not the Internet “marketing” solution. Staking one’s business upon Google results is simply not a sound solution. For a few weeks, the question, “will Twitter trump Google?” has been circulating tweets and blogs.

No, but social media will rule supreme as the top referrer of the web.

Twitter is already towering over the news sources in the UK and this doesn’t even include the API connections (i.e. Tweetdeck, Twhirl) to the social service:

TechCrunch reports:

In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior.

There is a good reason for this explosion in use. Social media serves niches that search engines and blogs alone cannot.

1. Internet Portal

Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are many people’s portal to the Internet. Sorry of conjuring up imagery of AOL. But, these are the first and last accessed sites that many people use during their Internet sessions. In a recent Nielsen study, 10% of all “internet time” is spent in social networks.  Facebook is being used as their portal page to the web, and they find referral links through in-network communications.

2. Hyperlocality

National sites and search engines will always be handicapped to scale down to provide accurate poignant local results-despite the changes to the algorithm. Social Networks have the ability to scale because the content creators are local. For example, if you want a Hot Dog in a particular city, page one results and the top result are far more national with localized information (Krystal). However, tapping out less than 140 characters, “where is the best Chicago dog in Knoxville?” will likely return nuanced and accurate local results.

3. Contextual Relevancy (crowdsourcing)

In the network of friends and followers, questions are not blindly stripped and plugged into an algorithm that may or may not account for misspellings or memory lapse. For example try this query on Google, “what is the name of the place that used to be next to the pizza parlor on johnson st.” Surprisingly, the same query to Twitter will likely yield a poignant response. In addition, all of these past queries are searchable.

The key difference here is primary vs. secondary research. My network “filters” the results for me:

add context to relevant information. Searchers don’t just want facts. They want to learn more about the experiences of real people they can relate to.

Trust is key. These “relational” or “social” queries are built on trust. If I ask a question to my network and they mislead me then I turn them off (unfollow or unfriend). On the other hand, the percentage of trust in search engines results continues to decline.

4. Immediacy

On a cold day in January while staring off into my tweetcloud in tweetdeck. I noticed a surge in Hudson and Plane. At least 30 minutes before any television news network could mobilize, Twitter broke the story. The Hudson is not the only case. The Mumbai terrorist attacks were best reported via Twitter by people inside the hotel.

Users can access Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn through web, text message, mobile applications. So, unfiltered information can be in real time. As these services become more ubiquitous, we will have a variety of devices that are fully integrated with our social networks–and yes that will include more than just my washer telling me that the spin cycle has finished.

5. Direct Access

Throw your Rolodex out the window. Social networks are connecting people directly to their sources. Want to complain about comcast or tell motrin that their ad is offensive? You don’t have to write letters that may or may not be read, you can tweet or blog directly to the source.

The caveat is that  BS detectors are very high in social mediums. For an advertiser or owner, simply setting up twitterhawk to swoop in to keyword mentions or hiring ghosttweeters to engage customers can be catastropic. Inauthentic posts or ghost written material can be obvious to readers / followers / friends, and as @guykawasaki has learned, exposure of ghost writing can be a disaster (or at least distracting).

6. Eavesdropping is Awesome

My guilty pleasure is  to eavesdrop on (interesting) conversations while dining in restarants. Whether on someone’s wall or in their Twitter feed, social marketing is largely about listening to people talking. If something is interesting, we are generally permitted to engage in that conversation. Of course, this can be exploited by marketers, but in some cases I want to be engaged while ranting about the ridiculously slow download speeds on my comcast connection.

7. Google Doesn’t Care

Some suggest that Google is “passionate” about providing quality search results. Google is an advertising company; first and foremost the objective is to generate revenue. Facebook recently redesigned the intro screen to open up more advertising, and this emphasis towards ads will like be more pervasive in future redesigns. On the other hand, Twitter’s revenue model is nebulous and undefined [probably best served and most profitable to sell to Google]. Therefore the free flow of information is not altered by the revenue model (yet).

Search engines are not going away. They will continue to improve the results, but the fact remains that people are continualy drawn to people. This is not a new phenomena as any listserve or newsgroup junkies of web 1.0 will tell you. As social networks continue to proliferate, they will become increasingly important referrers of the web.

He titled the keynote, “Twitter As A Tool For Social Media: Nobodies are the new Somebody.” While 80% of the audience at SES NY admitted to be “twittering” while Guy was talking, his keynote read like an intro to Twitter, but that is not to say that it was not without a few new nifty tools.

This is an interesting keynote topic of a “Search Engine Strategy” conference, but this base thread seemingly weaved into all of the first day sessions.

1. Forget the “A” list - don’t worry about the big Twitter names. It is not about a “trickle down” interaction. Twitter is about a “bubbling up” of excitement and evangelism.

2. Defocus

3. Get lots followers – it is important

• Autofollow everyone that follows you. You can use SocialToo to do this automatically.
• Retweetist. Retweeting is the sincerest form of flattery.
• Epenis.nl - How do you measure up?
• Twitalyzer 100 Most Influential
• Funny: Top Oddities News
• Timely: Top Most Popular News
• Adjix
• TwitterCounter
• Twitter Suggestions

4. Monitor

What are people saying about you or things that you care about? Construct advanced queries and feed that to a reader.

For example, use “contractor” within a geographic radius. Are there any painters on Twitter?

Or, look at the use of negative terms: “floyd -landis -pink.”

5. Copy – What are others doing?

• Twibs.com monitor what companies are doing on Twitter
• @comcastcares is a great model of using Twitter in business.
• @jetblue airlines. Does company stuff and personal.
• Amazondeals
• CirqueLasVegas

6. Search

• Use advanced search. Term + zip.
• Term OR term NOT RT
• Simple search: Scion
• Advanced Twitter Search
• Advanced search: Scion 100 miles
• Advanced search: SEO 100 miles

7. Tools.

• TweetDeck – Great to organize information.
  
• Twhirl – Nice if you have mutliple accounts
  
• CoTweet - nice for a team to use a single twitter account
  
• Tynt Tracer – copy and paste text with reference to source.
• How to Change the World
• Tweetie

8. Squeeze the trigger.

TwitterHawk – Keyword based tweets. Automatically generate tweets.

9. Make it easy to share.
Share on facebook button. Share on Twitter button.
Twitterfeed – rss reader to tweet.

10. Heat

Alltop All

MyAlltop

As a supplement, here is a comprehensive list of Twitter apps.

140 characters. That’s all you get. Accept a few terms–no bells and whistles, no groups, no pokes, no pictures. In 140 characters you can talk about walking your dog, report live accounts of breaking news, or link to relevant information. Very basic, right?

Not exactly. I have been on Twitter since April, and it is interesting to follow the social agreement over what is acceptable and what is not. Out of chaos and void, people form rules. If for no other reason: unfollow lurks a click away. Without fanfare or drama you can be dropped or blocked. End of story.

Here are a few:

• Don’t betray me. Don’t use me. Don’t patronize me. This is one of my top rules. Apparently, a number of tweeps agree as seen wtih Magpie.
• Don’t be an asshat–even if you have been drinking.
• Reply if you wanna. “Twitter is Reply-Optional.”
• Auto replies, love ‘em hate ‘em. Is it courteous to send a canned answer when someone follows you? Tweetlater offers some cool tools (like @reply digest), but you can also send a canned DM when someone follows you. Some loathe this.
• Retweet me. Asking for people to retweet doesn’t make sense to me. If you share a message that is unique and interesting people will retweet. Right?
• Groups. Personally, I don’t get it. Why bloat the simplicity?
• Be yourself. Don’t hire someone to write for you. BS detectors are very sensitive on Twitter. As Doug McCaughan says, “Tweet naked” (ie. be honest and transparent.
• Use the right number of characters. Some say leave enough characters to retweet. Others say to use all 140. I think you create relevant content sometimes it is 10 characters and others it is 140.
• Guard your Twitter password. Several months ago, Twitterank allegedly set out to “steal everyone’s password” who waded into their own Narcissist Twitterverse. As it turned out, no tom foolery, but it was a wake up call. For more information on Twitter’s password issues, check out this article.
• Most importantly follow this rule, at least once. We all have to lose a few followers.

Just like “clean up your forwards” and “snopes that shiz” became mandatory rules with email, and all of the delicate and obscure etiquette emerged from BBS and newsgroups, social networks don’t need no stinkin’ rules–we’ll make them ourselves. We tear down signs and erect pillars. Sometimes it is the way we make sense out of this nonsensical world.

Paul Boutin’s recent Wired article, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004, suggests that the blogosphere is  too crowded for a lone blogger to make a difference, and it it time to fold up shop on blogging:

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

I thought I would post a blog about it, and I hope that it draws more comments than those haranguing hecklers Paul references. In many ways, I tend to agree that microblogging and many 2.0 apps have changed the face of the personal publication model. To me, all of these tools become facets of my online persona, but the blog is central to this online presence.

Although it is possible to have superintegration across blog/facebook/twitter/freiendfeed/linkedin/youtube/flickr/etc., each of these personal promotion channels, have seperate communities (despite the crossover). After feeding tweets to Facebook for some period, it became clear that my tweetquency was too high for my conversation to be meaningful to Facebook friends. For me, the blog becomes the central hub of my online persona to all of the spokes (or channels) of social media.

Many activities that were formerly blog content now appear as tweets.  I write blog posts once or twice a week as opposed to once or twice a day, but I am actually publishing/retweeting/linking more content than ever before. Tweets are pithy. They may even have misspellings or ramblings. They generally are not thoughtful and well edited like blogs. However, with my posts, I try to think before I type. Therefore, blogs become more informational, reflective commentary, and the more pedestrian commentary happens in these other outlets.

Despite this Zarathustrian proclamation, blogs aren’t dead, and we didn’t kill them–at least not in 2008.

According to my recent poll, it looks like Twitter is the most popular social tool. Although the respondents were a fairly limited set (only 10 because I am lame and no one really wants to take my polls), here are the results:

• 50% Twitter
• 40% Facebook
• 10% LinkedIn

Last night, I went to the Tennessee Valley Fair last night and was sending twitter updates through Twinkle, only Twinkle wasn’t working. Boo. Anyway, here they are for your pleasure:

At Tennessee Valley Fair. Truly an E. TN experience. Gotta run best mullet starting in five.

The smoking policy at the fair is: smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

Tennessee Valley Fair aka TN Lottery player appreciation day.

Touching moment as a father reaches over and lights his adolescent daughter’s smoke.

Pretty sure I have what it takes to be a carnie, and a damn good one I’d be.

Didn’t see it coming, but a rat tail won the mullet pageant.

That’s all I got.

As Category 4 Gustav clips Cuba and tracks towards New Orleans, people from all over are sharing stories about the brewing storm on Twitter.  If you load this page, by the time you read the first tweet you will see 10 new tweets. CNN is using the live feed to report information online with Rich Sanchez (@ricksanchezcnn).

I have been talking about the use of Twitter in business lately. Being a lazy ass twitter user for a few years, I know there is power in the ridiculously short conversation system, but I just don’t know what it is. One of the best uses that I have seen is with Twinkle (an iPhone app). I am able to see tweets of those that are within a 50 mile radius.

Duct tape marketing offers this whitepaper for newbie business twitter users, which is totally worth the read.

And tonight, I ran across David Armano’s post on brand guidelines for Twitter, and I really like his use:

I’ve used Twitter as an extension of my “personal brand”. I share links, talk to people and in general be myself. In return, I’ve built relationships which transcend digital limitations and get insights into human behavior.

As iPhones change the paradigm and all cell phones move into the next generation, SMS sized blogging will become the mainstay, and as Doug has said, a restauranteer is going to have an employee that is just monitoring twitter to see customer feedback (in real time).

I tend to agree with David in that twitter allows me to be authentic and genuine in my feed. I can spew Faulkneresque stream of consciounce to all my follwers. Join me.