Use http://Klout.com to identify “influencers;” engage with 50 of them; and raise your Klout score by 20 points.

Klout uses “influential about” to determine the topic areas where you are considered most influential. For example, my twitter account @jfloyd is considered to be most influential about the following topics:

• Knoxville
• Social Media
• Legal
• Business

1. Identify 50 people that you believe are influential about topics that you want to be influential about (i.e. ”Sales” “Sales Coaching” etc. using http://wefollow.com)

Here is a report of “Sales”

Then run over to Klout and check the scores:

2. Increase “engagement” with these people over the next 30 days.

• If you register on Klout, you can click the  beside topics and it will notify them that you have given them Klout+
• Retweet them
• Respond to their questions
• Ask them to retweet you

3. Raise your following by 100 people and Klout score by 20 points in the next 30 days.

That’s the task, let me know how you do!

This article originally ran on Posterous.

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.

Today Carly Harrington wrote a nice piece about Shawn Van Dyke and I in the Knoxville News Sentinel. Shawn and I have been throwing around ideas about the web as a series of spokes around a central web hub for a few months.

Think a hub and spokes concept, with the hub being the Web site and spokes being the various online tools now available.

In addition to offering consulting services, we are working on several sites including Coupon Katie.

photo by tochis

So, they have talked about it for some time. I just want to say, “it’s here.” Welcome to the age of the conversation. Don’t believe me? Leave me a comment below, and we can talk about it.

The days of standing in an auditorium with a spotlight on stage shouting while the audience obediently listens are over. The era of big broadcast messages on television shows, billboards that clutter every open space, or in the pages of your magazine are reaching the end of their usable lives. People are tired of businesses screaming at them and telling them what to buy, at what price and how many. Now consumers are talking to each other, talking to the businesses, and sometimes even shouting back, a little.

B 2 C (Business to Consumer) is redefined. Under the new definition, Business to Conversation, businesses eavesdrop on the Consumer to Consumer conversation for an opportunity to jump in:

Take Comcast, for example. Have a problem with your cable or internet connection. Jump on Twitter and start talking about your experience. I wager that a friendly tweet will come from @comcastcares trying to help–talking with you about your problems (and not just sleeping on your couch).

Have a problem with Quickbooks? I posted about the diabolic Quickbooks. Within a few hours, Intuit jumps into the conversation pledging assistance.

A friend was raving about a new wireframing application, Balsamiq, through a tweet. They reached out to him and started a conversation about the product. They not only gave him a free license to the product, they offered more licenses to friends. The online conversation that started with a tweet sprang to life as he truly had something to talk about: a great product and a company that engaged.

B 2 C is also flipped to C 2 B. The consumer now has a voice to reach out and talk to businesses. If careful and attentive a business can listen exactly to the needs of their market. What would have required focus groups and millions of dollars in testing is now just a matter listening, which is reserved for the courageous.

After listening to a few raving reviews, I wanted an invite to a cool new application, Boxee, but Alpha testing was backlogged. After my subtle suggestion, Boxee obliged the next day. By gently listening, which in this case required nothing more than a search feed, this company can organically grow their product to interested parties. Compare that with a blairing billboard.

Sometimes the Customers shout a bit more. Glenn Reynolds’ core concept in Army of Davids is that the emerging (conversational) Web and other technological enhancements are allowing the little guy take down giants. For example, conversations between a group of moms in the fall of 2008 forced the Goliath, Motrin, to yank their ads after a short run.

We are truly in a different era that is not fully understood. Some businesses lightly wade into the social sphere to “get the benefits” of the new web, but they are unwilling to truly get wet. Unfortunately, there are some still standing on the dimly lit stage, shouting and no one is listening–they just don’t get it. The age of conversation is here, just listen.

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.

I was at an Entrepreneurs of Knoxville meeting last week talking about the interplay between social media sites and main sites (however you define “main sites” blogs, main pages, or otherwise). It reminded me of this slide that I threw together for a client a few months ago:

Interaction of Social Media Sites for Marketing Strategies

It is certainly not a new idea to describe online assets in this way, but I think “hub and spoke” is fairly fitting for the current web environment. Clear execution throughout all channels is important, so engaging in social media requires strategy–although many apply a whimsical approach.

I encourage clients to:

• Identify goals
• Identify appropriate mediums
• Create genuine, quality content–even if it hurts
• Truly engage with others
• Remain active

There is no easy shortcut to crafting your online persona. It takes time and energy to create these networks, but the benefits are significant not only to generating more business but also the learning that occurs in the engagement of others. Hit me here if you would like to discuss more.

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

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).