Hi, you’ve likely been sent here by a post on a Facebook page. The administrator of that page has read this and is attempting to reach their audience better through your help. So read on, join the experiment and comment afterwards to let us know if it works.

What is Facebook’s EdgeRank?

Facebook introduced an algorithm called EdgeRank that determines which content to show in each persons news feed. The effects on a person to person level is that no longer will you see everything your friends post to Facebook in your news feed  unless you look at their profile/timeline.

This EdgeRank algorithm also effects content posted from a Facebook page (formerly called a fan page). So when the administrator posts an announcement to the page Facebook’s EdgeRank determines who should see the content in their news feed.

What are the factors of EdgeRank?

Most sites point to three factors: User Interactions, Weight, and Time Decay. The basic factor of EdgeRank is a User Interaction which is an umbrella term including one of the following actions: message, viewing the timeline/page/profile, liking a piece of content, sharing a piece of content or commenting on anything from the page or user. So the more you interact with content from a friend or from a page the more likely content from that person or page will show up in your news feed.

Outside of your personal interactions, there are other factors of EdgeRank:

• Total Interactions, the more likes, shares, or comments a piece of content has the more likely it will show up in more news feeds
• Content Weight, videos and pictures have more EdgeRank than just plain text
• Time Decay, the longer a peice of content is out there the less likely it will show up in your news feed (news isn’t old right :)
• Your network, if a friend you interact with has interactions with a piece of content it will be more likely to show up in your news feed. Technically this is bundled under the “User Interactions” factor but is pulled out for our discussion today.

So we’ll boil EdgeRank all down to a simple statement: Content is more likely to show up in your news feed if you have previously interacted with the page, if the content has a lot of interactions on it,  if it’s a photo or video, if it’s within the last hour, and if your friends have interacted with it.

How can we help?

The people behind the Facebook Page which sent you here is passionate about something and the fact that you came here you are passionate about helping them, for that we thank you. Since you clicked on the link to get here you probably already have a high EdgeRank between you and the Page which sent you here. But as we know the page has a larger audience which isn’t seeing their content. This is where the Network Effect may play a role.

What you can do to effect the EdgeRank factor of a piece of content:

• Interact with the content (like, comment, or share)
• Do your interaction soon after the content is posted (seconds count)

Lets get real, you have a life and aren’t on Facebook enough to see all the content this Page has posted, so how do you cut through all the clutter and get your interaction to be timely? We’re so glad you asked!

SMS and Facebook’s EdgeRank

Did you know you can subscribe to a Facebook Page’s updates (and a person’s updates) through sms? And when you get a text from Facebook it will contain the first 100 or so characters of the update. You can comment on it by replying via text/sms or you can reply with “like” (without the quotes) to Like it. Both of these actions will contribute as an personal interaction on that piece of content and will increase it’s EdgeRank for your network and for the page’s connections.

That’s it, that’s the secret way to help a page beat the EdgeRank algorithm. Simply subscribe via sms to the page and like or comment (via text message) to content. Your participation will increase the content’s EdgeRank and will serve to further the mission of the Facebook Page you are subscribed to. What follows is a step-by-step method of how to setup sms and subscribe to a page.

Setup SMS and Facebook

1. Configure Mobile
   • Go to Account Settings, then click Mobile in the left sidebar (or go here)
   • Click Add a Phone
   • Choose your Country and Carrier and click Next
   • Text the letter F to 32665 (FBOOK)
   • Type in the confirmation code
   • (clear the checkboxes if you want to)
   • Click Next
   • Verify that you have Notifications enabled: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=mobile&section=notifications&t
2. Subscribe to the page via SMS
   • Visit the Facebook page which sent you here (or any Facebook page/user profile  you want to subscribe to)
   • In the left sidebar find the “Get Updates via SMS” Link and click it

Thats it, now when you receive a status update you can simply type like from your phone or a comment and send it back. Viola EdgeRank effected.

Thanks for your support!

There are a lot of twitter list tools out there (see links below) but today’s post will focus on the basics of Twitter List Management, how to create, edit, and use twitter lists. For some of you who’ve already created a twitter list and know how to add/remove people skip down to the Advanced tools section.

Why Twitter List Management?

There is only so much data one can consume in a day. With twitter there are reasons you may need or want to follow accounts that you don’t actually want to read their content on a regular basis. You really have two options, ignore the content they are posting, or add everyone else to a list and just watch that list.

Essentially twitter lists help you to curate content and consume it when you want to. If you were interested in travel deals you could create a travel-deals list and put all the discount travel twitter accounts into it. Or if you want to find spiritual inspiration you could create a list for that and put pastors, theologians, thinkers, and other spiritual leaders into it.

Other types of twitter lists (they are endless):

• friends you know or have met in real life
• customers/clients/audience/ etc.
• family
• co-workers (can spy on them)
• news/media (always nice to have to find out what’s going on)
• local people
• famous people (in your sphere, or in social media, or in traditional media, or musicians etc)
• funny  accounts (lolcats and more)

Do I have to follow someone to add them to a list?

Simple answer: no. You can add anyone to a list and keep them from ever showing up in your main twitter timeline.  (There are longer more drawn out answers to this question that refer to twitter follow building strategy and more)

Do they get notified when I add them to a list?

Simple answer: That depends. You have the option of making the list public or private. For example you may have a friends list as public, but a “people I’m spying on” list as private.  Lists that are private are just that, only you know what the list name is, the description and how is in the list. No one else (except the employees of twitter of course, and any application you’ve given permission to your account) can see this information on a private list.

If it’s a public list, users can get notified via tools if they’ve been added to a list. Or anyone can click on the list to see who is in the list. Users can also see which lists an account has been added to. This calls for pictures and examples:

How to see who is in a list:

First you have to find a list… view any user (in this case @cspenn) and notice the tabs right above the first tweet:

See the “Lists” section to the right? click on that to reveal the public lists this user has created:

Fun set of lists eh? My favorite is the sent-me-dm-spam… Anyways, click on one of those list links to view the curated content of that list, I went with the first one, and the URL looks like: http://twitter.com/#!/cspenn/replied you can now see the curated content of @cspenn in his replied list. Note the top gives you some interesting information:

At the time of this post, there were 17 users listed in the “replied” list for @cspenn, and one person is subscribed to the list (yes you can follow lists which means you are not following each of the 17 people in this list but you will get their content in your timeline because you are following a list they are in…. )

To see who is in this replied list click on the “Following: 17″ tab.  which brings you to this URL: http://twitter.com/#!/cspenn/replied/members

And thats how you can see who is in a list (any public list)

How to see what twitter lists a user is in?

This is actually more simple. Click to a user, (Still picking on @cspenn here) find their stats area in the top of the right hand column:

You’ll see that as of this writing Christopher has been added to 2,758 Public lists. (yup that’s right, private lists are private and are not counted in this number) Click on that number to see the 2,758 lists.

So there you have it, via the web you can see lists, see who are in a given list, see the content in a given list and see where a given user is listed.

But How do I create a twitter list?

Simple, sign into twitter, find the lists tab (just above your timeline) click on it and then choose “create a list”

From the resulting window you can fill in the name, description and choose if it’s to be public or private.

Ok but how do I add a user to a Twitter list?

Go to a user’s  profile, and find the little man button.

Click on it

Choose “Add to list”

Done.

Remember you don’t have to be following a user to add them to a list.

And that’s the basics of twitter list management via the web.

What about twitter lists on my iPhone/Andrioid App?

• From your home timeline, click the three-dot … icon on lower right hand side of your screen (hint: it’s next to the magnifying glass icon.)
• Clicking on that icon will bring you to a menu that includes, down at the bottom, all of the lists you’ve created and the lists you’re following. You can add a new list right here.
• Or, once you’ve clicked on a list you can then touch the icon in the lower right hand corner of your screen to bring up a list of options such as sharing, editing, or deleting the list. Win!

Advanced tools for Twitter List Management

I have some lists which I manage manually and some which I manages using these tools, it just depends on the needs, but I have to admit I find Formulists to be the best twitter list management tool out there:

• formulists – too many functions to mention
• listorious - twitter list directory
• tweepML –  find more twitter lists
• more list tools from oneforty

I’m atending this cool 2-day event in Detroit called Future Midwest. And on the whole it’s a really fantastic event. If you want to read more about what happened today talke a look at the twitter archive of the #fmw11 hashtag.

But for those of you who didn’t click those links, keep reading here to witness me rant about a few things. But first I do have to explain what FutureMidwest is:

What is Future Midwest?

Pitched on it’s website as “The region’s largest digital business conference.” Future Midwest is like a regional South by Southwest. (SXSW) They explain further on the website and most of their marketing has been around the concept of Midwest being the region and that the conference will be: “professionals with extensive digital, marketing and strategic backgrounds teaching attendees “what” they should expect to see in the coming years and “how” to successfully capitalize on the trends with marketing and business strategies.” Plus “the opportunity to network with each other, presenters and professionals from the startup community, VC firms and a variety of other industries and backgrounds.”

I’ve been able to network with VCs, startups, presenters, and professionals in the startup community. I’ve also heard a couple of engaging talks on business and the future of digital business (mobil and social). I’ve seen some really amazing talent represented here.

Are you waiting for the other shoe to drop?

The Problem with Future MIDWEST

Is that this has been all about Detroit. Yes I understand that there are a lot of people from Detroit here, and that the founders are Detroit focused etc. But for those of us not from Detroit I didn’t pay to come to a cheerleading session about how Woodward Ave will be changed to Webward Ave. (Which is stupid on so many levels). And I didn’t pay to hear speakers show me how things are terrible in Detroit, why they are and what D Town needs to do to revitalize.

I’m not from Detroit.

I’m a West Sider, and while I think we should all get along and play well together, I expected this conference to contain more information about the region, about the Midwest. Something that I can be proud of to talk to my friends in Chicago and explain what is coming out of Michigan, or explain to my Californian friends what is cool and coming out of the MidWest.

I also expected to see people brainstorming how we can unite across barriers such as states and geography to get the midwest into the mobile-social playing field. Lets talk about 4G and why the MidWest is being over looked.

Instead I’m pitched the fact that light rail is coming to Detroit and will not ever reach outside of Detroit.

If thist conference were named Future Detroit I could understand all the cheerleading about Mo Town, but since it’s called Future MidWest can we please please discuss the region? @davemurr one of the co-chair’s for Future MidWest even had the balls to post this tweet: “Michigan still suffers from pocketed communities. #Detroit, #AnnArbor, #GrandRapids, #Lansing are you listening? #FMW11″  I wanted to scream so bad when I read that. If Future Midwest is truly about the midwest then get off the D Town cheerleading squad and start the open dialog.

And that’s day one.

Oh there was also this thing called Funded by Night. So, So, So worth my money for the whole conference, and then some. Sorry to the 20 something startups who presented and didn’t win. But wow what an event!

Have you even been to a conference that pimped out the city you were not from, and did it in a way that wasn’t attractive? What did you do?

Every once in a while a request to be a guest blogger here is granted. The following post is written by Leonard Widrich, Leo is the co-founder of BufferApp.com, which helps to annoy followers less with a new way to schedule Tweets. He publishes Twitter tips at blog.bufferapp.com every week, you can connect with him @leowid or the app itself @bufferapp on Twitter.

Buffer Twitter App Review

Twitter’s latest evaluation of $7.7 billion goes far beyond it’s monetary value. Making a difference on Twitter is more important than ever. What you best avoid at all times is annoying your followers by sending them too many tweets at once.

If you feel you could do with spreading out your tweets a bit more and tweet more consistently every day, let me introduce you to Buffer a new Twitter App.

Buffer? Can you just give me a quick description?

Buffer lets you add many tweets at once to your Buffer account and then spreads them out over the day for you. I find this particularly useful when you read the news. I put my 5 favourite articles into the Buffer and the app will tweet them well spread out over the course of the day. No individual scheduling or time setting. One click and it’s in your Buffer.

I am interested – What does it do in more detail?

The easiest way to put tweets into your Buffer is by using one of the browser extensions. Whenever you find an interesting article, you give it one click on the Buffer icon.

Buffer, by default, gives you the title and the link of the site you are on. You can edit the tweet some more or simply hit “add to Buffer” right away.

See an example of Colin’s post below:

Track the impact of your buffered tweets with analytics too

Conveniently Buffer has also just launched an analytics feature. It will help you to track the impact for your tweets. It shows you the retweets of all your tweets sent via Buffer. The service will have click rate and other handy insights ready real soon too.

What happens to my tweets when Buffered?

Once you added tweets to your Buffer, they will be scheduled for you. This means your updates will be tweeted for you during the day. When? Here is how it works:

When you first sign up you set a couple of fixed tweeting times. Now at each time, one of your tweets will go out every day. The good thing is that there is no need to schedule each tweet individually, like you would do with other tweet scheduling services. Oh and of course you can always change your daily tweeting times any time.

As an example, here are my daily tweeting times, where each one of my buffered tweets will go out:

What makes Buffer “killer”?

If you have similar habits like me, reading many great blogposts every day and trying to get the most out of Twitter, you will love to use Buffer.

The thing you will appreciate most about Buffer is that all it takes is one click on the icon to have another tweet scheduled in your Buffer. On top of that you share great articles with your followers consistently all day and you don’t flood them with too many tweets at once.

Finally I also want to point out that Buffer is no “instead of Tweetdeck or Hootsuite” tool. You can seamlessly integrate the use of Buffer with your favourite client.

You should try out Buffer and let me know your views below. I am very curious if you find it useful too.

Paul Here

So let’s hear it, was this a benificial review? Do you like the guest post format? Have you tried Buffer? Shout out in the comments below. Oh, and here is a handy Twitter search to find out who is using buffer

Yesterday Facebook announced some major changes to Facebook Pages. A Quick hit list of some of the things that changed:

• Page layouts now appear like the new profile layouts (pictures at top, “tabs” in the left column under pic)
• Admins can be publicly displayed
• Page Admins can comment on public users timeline and other pages’ walls
• Lighbox for Picture viewing
• FBML is going away March 11. Welcome iFrames

This post is aimed at the non developer (or dare I say the web developer not familiar with developing on Facebook) in an effort to give the bare minimum of what is needed to get your first custom “tab” via iframe deployed.

Facebook Custom tab?

In the new page layout there are no longer tabs, so we’ll shortly stop calling them tabs and move towards Custom applications, or Custom app. The Landing tab nomenclature will probably move to a Page’s custom landing application, or landing app. But for now even Facebook is still calling them tabs (strange?)

When we created custom tabs using FBML we actually added an application called Static FBML which supposedly is going away March 11. Facebook has had trouble deprecating things like FBML in the past so I take this as a warning but not a hard deadline. Oh and if you are reading this before March 11 2011, please please please add a couple Static FBML apps to your page, at a minimum it leaves your options open. We don’t fully know what we’re loosing yet.

Now that Static FBML is going away we will still need to add an application to our page to develop the custom tab. But instead of it being FBML, we need it to be an iframe. Since there is no “Static FBML” equivalent in the iFrame world below is a description of how to create your own custom Facebook application to use the iFrame capabilities.

What is an iFrame and why do I want it on Facebook?

An iFrame allows you to display content from page A on page B. Typically iFrames are used to cross domains. So I can embed a YouTube video on my site via iFrame. The code for the iFrame simply tells the browser to request the content from this location (server).

The key for you and your Facebook page is now you can use your company’s CMS and integrate with your database, or provide ecommerce information on this “tab” without having to go to Facebook. Once the iFrame is established all you have to do is change the content of the page it’s pulling in (typically on your company’s website, though I recommend you hide it from the general public)

How To add an iFrame to Facebook page

Go to facebook.com/developers and click on the “+ Set Up New App” button.  (Or click the “Create one” link) which takes you to: http://www.facebook.com/developers/createapp.php

Give your application a name. And agree to the Facebook Terms of Service.

Verify your humanness. Robots need not apply.

Welcome to the craziness! What I will focus on here is the bare minimum to getting your Facebook custom iframe app up and running. However there is a lot more to these apps than what I will cover. Bonus: Not needed for this to work, but it makes you look good: Change the Icon (click Change your icon) to upload a 16px x 16px icon for your “custom tab” Everything else on this page is 100% optional for today’s objective.

The “Facebook Integration” link in the left column is where the rabbit trail goes even deeper.

The most confusing section for a non-facebook-developer is the Canvas Page and Canvas URL fields. The hint is this: Facebook combines a setting below with  your Canvas URL to create the URL it requests for the iFrame. For now fill out the Canvas page, and in the Canvas URL fill in everything but the page for your iframe, ex: http://myhost.com/iframe-content-here will break into the Canvas URL of just http://myhost.com whereas http://myhost.com/cat1/date/funURL/iframe-content-here will break into the Canvas URL of http://myhost.com/cat1/date/funURL/ Always have a trailing slash in this field.

This took me a little while and some 404 logfile reading to figure out, because Facebook does not make it clear how these are used.

Then We finally get to the important part: The Tab settings. Simply give the tab a name (keep it really short, limited to 16 characters) Choose iFrame and give it a Tab URL. The Tab URL is the final part of the iframe content request URL from above. So if your iframe content lives at http://myhost.com/iframe-content-here your Canvas URL would be http://myhost.com and your Tab URL would be iframe-content-here. Even if your content lived at http://myhost.com/cat1/date/funURL/iframe-content-here your Tab URL would be the same iframe-content-here (your Canvas URL should however be different)

Save these changes. Congratulations, you’ve made your first Facebook application. Now we need to add it to the page of your choice.

Add the App to your Page

In the resulting page you have the option of Editing the Settings which allows you to dive deeper into these or fix any problems you may have encountered. But to add it to the page you will need to click the “Application Profile Page”

On the Application Profile Page choose “Add to my Page.” Under the Profile image (which should be the default Facebook grey toned image) Choose the page you want this iFrame to appear on and click the “Add to page” button next to it.

Done!

When you visit that page you will now see the Welcome! as a link under the profile picture.

Make the iFrame Tab the Default for Viewers

To make it the default click Edit Page in the upper right hand corner.

Choose Manage Permissions

In the default Landing Tab: Drop down selector choose your new application: Welcome! and Save Changes.

Follow Up?

These directions might not be 100% accurate, however please let me know if you find the useful, or if you se any problems here.

Yeah I miss FBML already ;)

I often am asked which CMS a client should use, and while I’m not a developer I know plenty of developers and somehow have been given the status of “objective recommender.” This morning I woke to find just such an email request:

Paul, If you woke up this morning and you Boss said lets blow up the website, start over will all things new and I want it done in 2 months, besides the panic, which CMS would you choose? WordPress versus Drupal verus Joomla versus EE? Or something else for a 2000 Page site…

Values placed on the selection:

• Common development the ability to use what others have done
• Flexible
• Easy for admins/editors to edit
• SEO friendly
• Local developers
• Manageable site of 2000+ pages

CMS Comparisons

The decisions as to which CMS are difficult. However the most important part of the CMS puzzle is your developers. All of these are written in PHP and can have plugins/modules written for it, however some are friendlier to developers than others. The reason it’s about your developers: None of these will work off the shelf and with existing plugins. All will have to be customized up front and tweaked as you make changes.

WordPress (aka WP)

• Developers: Developers don’t love this as much as Drupal, but the ease of use for the user and the common use of this cms has attracted a lot of developers.
• Quantity of local developers: Far and away the clear winner in this space. Just about every developer has experience with WP.
• Editor/admin Usability: Bar none the most user friendly CMS in this list
• Can it handle 2000 pages: yes easily – its not just a blog anymore
• Common Development – plugins: tons, a lot of bad ones, but there are tons of plugins out there.
• Common Development – themes: tons, costs are in the $100 range, buy one, modify it, life is good.
• Flexible: Very flexible, i’ve seen WordPress do pretty crazy things, but yet at it’s core it’s a loop based blogging cms so not the best in this list for flexibility
• Out of the box SEO: Best in this list. It’s baked into the base code
• Plugin SEO: Even better. – tons of options
• Typical Dev needs: Heavy upfront, very little after launch most of the tweaks can happen by a junior level developer
• Sites using WP

Joomla

• Developers: Typically they struggle. I have not found a really, really good developer who develops for Joomla (they can and will, but they curse while doing it)
• Quantity of local developers: Joomla Users Groups are mostly end users trying to figure out how to use it – this ranks 3rd.
• Editor/admin Usability: the worst on this list
• Can it handle 2000 pages: yes but it’d be really complicated on the admin to find them all.
• Common Development – plugins: out there. not great, not a huge selection — typically devs roll their own
• Common Development – themes: some, not great.
• Flexible: least in this list. combine the limited plugins, limited developers, with the frustration for devs and the limited functions out of the box — its pretty limited.
• Out of the box SEO: Good luck
• Plugin SEO: only comes half way to where it needs to be
• Typical Dev needs: Steady
• Sites using Joomla

Drupal

• Developers: They love this CMS, I don’t know why yet, but I know really good developers who Drupal out all day. — the learning curve is higher than in WordPress, but makes sense after learning
• Quantity of local developers: More than I would expect. 2nd place behind WordPress
• Editor/admin Usability: not the best, but it’s fair/good probably tied with EE
• Can it handle 2000 pages: yes easily
• Common Development – plugins: yes, and growing more each day.
• Common Development – themes: yes and growing more each day
• Flexible: Probably the most flexible on this list.
• Out of the box SEO: #2, right behind WordPress
• Plugin SEO: makes it neck and neck with WordPress
• Typical Dev needs: Heavy upfront, weekly/monthly after
• Sites using Drupal

Expression Engine (aka EE)

• Developers: Those who do EE do it well, but there is a huge barrier to entry. I do know smart developers on the EE platform — also the company who makes it is available to support/develop on EE. Probably one of the only CMSs in this list that can say that
• Quantity of Local Developers: One of the top Experts on EE is local, but overall this CMS has the lowest quantity available in this list
• Editor/admin Usability: Again tied with Drupal
• Can it handle 2000 pages: yes easily
• Common Development – plugins: the lowest quantity on this list – but best quality. However if you want to display twitter feed in a specific way (for example), since there are only 2 plugins, you’ll typically have to roll your own
• Common Development – themes: the lowest quantity on this list – but typically beautiful sites!
• Flexible: Limited but not by much, it’s neck and neck with WordPress for 2nd/3rd place
• Out of the box SEO: ok, though most EE sites don’t take SEO into consideration
• Plugin SEO: makes it better, but still in 3rd position
• Typical Dev needs: Heavy upfront, weekly/monthly after
• Sites using EE

Winning CMS in Each Category:

• Developers: Drupal
• Quantity of Local Developers: WordPress
• Editor/admin Usability: WordPress
• Can it handle 2000 pages: Drupal WordPress and EE tied at this level… at 10K pages it’s Drupal left standing, no other CMS (in this list) comes close to that robustness.
• Common Development – plugins: WordPress
• Common Development – themes: WordPress
• Flexible: Drupal
• Out of the box SEO: WordPress
• Plugin SEO: Drupal and WordPress tied
• Typical Dev needs: WordPress

Which CMS is right for you?

No doubt it’s the one that you have a good relationship with multiple developers on. I’s love for you to choose WordPress. But I bet that since the impression that “WP is just a blogging cms and cannot handle a robust site” they’ll shake out in this order:

1. Drupal
2. WordPress
3. EE
4. Joomla

Let the Hate Mail Ensue

This is of course all my opinion, I use and love WordPress. I’d love to get into Drupal. I’ve hated dealing with Joomla, and I’ve personally never used an EE CMS site (remember that barrier to entry) . That being said, I’d love to be corrected, I will adjust this post as needed, feel free to shout out in the comments as to what needs adjusting and I’ll fix it.

Image Source

Checkout this Social Media Inforgraphic from Flowtown. (Click the image to view better size)

I noticed two problems for this Social Media Infographic:

1. This is data from April 2010, released in November of 2010. In the realm of Social Media and Marketing this infographic might as well be based on data from the 1980′s. I’d love to see how people are using Social Media for 2011.
2. 9% of people plan to increase their investment in … wait for it…. MySpace.  Wow, we really need to educate the marketers out there ;)

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. What problems do you see in this Social Media Infographic?

You can see the original data in a post from SME and download the PDF Whitepaper.

I’m often introduced to people as a Social Media Guru. It drives me crazy, I have never once given myself that title nor have I accepted it. I understand that we humans have to have boxes, or rather labels for everything. From job titles to clothing styles, to even people groups, like digital natives etc. But we can really come up with a better label than Social Media Guru. (Besides I dislike being put in a box, you might call it a postmodern thing.)

I don’t call a lawyer a law Guru, Or what about the graphic designers should we call them Photoshop Gurus, or better yet Pixel Gurus? (I know that some designers might wear that label with pride, nerds). What about an office manager, do we label them Office Gurus?

The crowd responds with a resounding, NO.

Why Social Media Gurus

So why would we label a new role in the workforce a guru? Probably cause we don’t know what else to call them (or me). I’ve heard some fun attempts at introducing me without saying the G word… such as Paul Kortman knows Social Media, or Paul spends all his time on Facebook, or Twitter. — Yeah that’s the qualifications I want entering a new business pitch, or a speaking engagement.

Lets not forget the kissing cousin, Search Engine Guru, aka SEO Guru.

Because Search is just as difficult as Social Media (even though there is overlap, search is totally different!) and even though the SEO role has been around for 10…. count em, TEN years, we still have this Search Engine Guru label. I’ll stick to talking about Social Media Gurus, but the same applies for SEO Gurus.

Guru defined

A friend of mine once said, ‘Gurus are for Love, not Social Media’ – think of that when introducing someone as a Social Media Guru… aka they know how to make love in social media. Um yeah please don’t use that title anymore.

One last point about the Guru label. It’s the Guru-Maven definition proof:

“A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a certain area” From Wikipedia

“A maven (also mavin) is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others.” Also from Wikipedia

So should we call these people Social Media Mavens? Perhaps, this label is light years better than the G word. It reflects how we desire to help others get smarter. I don’t want to be the person who is considered a magician, I’d rather be the best trainer/teacher/doer as possible which will in the end bring about sustainable results for your business.

Social Media and Business

Lets look at the roles Social Media plays in business. First we have the Strategist, a person who can look at the business plan, think about the big picture and help you navigate where, what, how much, and the other meta questions about social media and how it applies to your business model.

Then you have the other roles, such as team lead, analyst, marketer, director, developer, designer etc. Which provides us with the following list:

• Social Media Strategist
• Social Media Analyst
• Social Media Marketer
• Social Media Director
• Social Media Coach

Did I miss any titles you like? Any other roles that are miss-labeled on a regular basis? Let me/the other readers know via a comment below. Oh and if you are one of those people who call me a guru, I’ll accept your groveling apology in the comments ;)

You did what?

Yup, I quit the best job I’ve ever had. For one of the best agencies in Grand Rapids. My last day as an official employee of ddm will be October 15, next Friday. And no I did not quit with a whiteboard and a mass email like Jenny ;)

Why did you quit?

I have heard a lot of people give lip service to having their family as a priority. I have been watching myself fall into the same trap, saying I value my family and time with them over work, while at the same time I was spending every moment possible working. I have encountered a fork in the road of my career where I could choose to continue to sacrifice my family time and attain a really successful career in the marketing agency I work for, or choose my family over a successful career. I have made my choice. I challenge you to make yours consciously versus unconsciously.

So now what? Unemployment?

Well not really, I’m going freelance, doing the same work I’ve done before just on a more focused client list with fewer obligations and less overhead.

What about ddm and their clients?

Until ddm hires a replacement I’ll be on contract for them to ensure their client commitments are kept.

Do you really think you will work less?

Most people I’ve talked to about this suggest that I will work harder, and more. However I believe that its about making a choice, I choose to quit my job to spend more time with my family, not to make more money. If I work the system right I will get to do that, if not I’ll have failed. Either way I need to figure this out, give it a try and find out if I can actually spend more time with Becky and the kiddos.

Put it this way, the status quo of working at an agency was not going to get me more time with my family. Working freelance might not either. But there is a chance it might. In my opinion, these little faces are worth the risk.

What do you do anyway?

I go by many titles, and do lots of jobs, but it all falls under the arena of online marketing. I ask businesses a basic question: What are your online presences doing for your bottom line? Then I help ensure the answer to that question is a positive answer.

In reality I do:

• Search – Both SEO and paid placement (PPC). I get targeted prospects to your website
• Social – Who has time for it? How does it apply in a B2B market? – I answer those and assist clients in managing their social presences
• Segment – Some think of it as Google Analytics, but it’s more than that, I dive deep into user behavior, and produce actionable changes a business needs to take in their online presences.
• Email Marketing – managing lists, managing campaigns, working through conversion metrics and the like.
• Conversion Optimization – Does your website have a call to action? Is it obvious to viewers what you want them to do? I help you make the Call to Action obvious.

Are you going to start an agency?

I just quit an agency where I was given a lot of leeway and leverage to build a successful online marketing department. I have no desire to build an entire agency, nor do I want to compete at that level.

That said, if you were to ask me two years ago if I’d be working at ddm in 2012 I would have said yes. I leave the future to God’s plan, all I know is the next step. I’m taking this step in faith. If I am blessed with too much work, I’ll have to cross that bridge when I get there. I have ideas and ‘plans’ in case that happens, but we’ll figure out what to do when that occurs.

Honestly, my goal is to get out of the trading hours for dollars business (aka the service sector). I don’t have a way to do that yet, but when I do I’ll let you know about it. Until then I’ll be assisting clients in a more focused manner than I was able to do before.

Who influenced you in this move?

There are a lot of influencers in this decision, some know their role, some don’t. Some are larger than life, like Gary Vaynerchuk, others are not so large, like my Amish friends. There have been many great conversations which have lead to this. Becky and I have been praying and working through this for about a year which has given opportunity for some fun conversations.

Wait, you have Amish friends?

Ah, young grasshopper you have much to learn.

Got any questions I didn’t predict? give a shout out in the comments and I’ll be sure to answer them for you.

Don’t know the full story yet, but on multiple Facebook pages our team has visited today we’ve noticed that you cannot comment on the wall postings.

An example from Social Media Examiner:

Older post made to wall, you can comment on it

Versus the recent comments:

Recent Wall Posts with no ability to Comment

For reference here’s more of the page in context:

Older posts (9 hours ago) can be commented on

Update: This does not affect walls of personal profiles. Just Pages, no word yet if this affects community pages yet.

Update 10:09 am Target’s Wall: http://www.facebook.com/target?v=wall documents this quite well

Note the comment on Target's wall about Facebook comments being broken, and then comments on a later post

Target users desiring it to be fixed.

Update 10pm: Known issue, Social Media Examiner has a thread explaining that its the posts made by fans to the walls of business pages. However fans can still comment on posts by the page admins. AllFacebook.com is also covering it.