By Clemens Rettich, on October 26th, 2011 
The Goods
Xobni is add-on software for Microsoft Outlook (and other platforms). After installing Xobni, connecting it with your various social accounts, and letting it do its data-gathering thing, it sits to the side of your Outlook window.
Xobni can store all of your data in the cloud where you have syncing capability with almost every device and platform you use (Pro version). It puts any other form of contact data syncing to shame.
When you click on an email in your inbox, in a sidebar Xobni shows you:
The social media accounts that person has (including their most . . . → Read More: My Favourite Social Tool: Xobni
By Clemens Rettich, on September 23rd, 2011 
Facebook is experiencing seismic shocks as it tries one more time to find the perfect fit between our lives and desires, and the larger social (and social business) community.
Unlike various software platforms, Facebook has never really adopted the public version number (beta, 1.0, 1.x, 2.0…) game. It has been more organic and idiosyncratic than that. Certain changes do seem to have been on the ‘new model’ level however: news feeds (that introduction was interesting), fan pages, Facebook chat, the appearance and disappearance of tabbed profiles (Facebook ‘beta’), all might have been seen as new version numbers.
What about . . . → Read More: Facebook 3.0? New Feature Round-Up
By Clemens Rettich, on September 9th, 2011 
As humans we seem to be wired for games and keeping score. Even when there is no material reward, we want to know how we did compared to others.
Perhaps that drive is connected deep down to some kind of evolutionary imperative where competition for food, mates, offspring, or just the number of people watching our backs for saber tooth tigers meant the difference between walking upright or remaining a threatened knuckle-dragger. Accountants and comptrollers aren’t the only bean counters out there. We all are.
Whatever the root of the counting instinct, it is the cause of much distraction . . . → Read More: Vanity, Vanity – What Social Media Metrics Don’t Tell You
By Maeve Maguire, on September 7th, 2011 
Guest post by Maeve Maguire
I have a client who owns a cooking school, and for whom I am helping write website content. Her customers are mostly women, between the ages of 35 to 70. They hear about her cooking classes from friends who are current or past students, and they usually attend in pairs or groups. Here is a conversation we had:
Me: I see your web designer has included a Twitter icon on your banner. Are you planning on using Twitter as a communication tool?
My client: Yes, I was planning on using Twitter. My web . . . → Read More: If You Must Tweet, Choose Your Tweeter Wisely
By Clemens Rettich, on September 2nd, 2011 
I really want one of those guys they get on certain AM radio stations to announce the title of this series in that super-manly-EQ’d-for-testosterone voice they use for monster car shows.
That would be fun.
This is part 2 of my totally subjective series on tools and techniques that make my online work easier. I am not a full time social media/blogger person, but I use social media to support my work and relationships as a coach, speaker, and teacher. These are the tools and approaches that help me do that in my ‘spare’ time, and still be effective.
LinkedIn Groups. . . . → Read More: Nitro Pack 2: 4 More Social Media Power Tips and Tools
By Clemens Rettich, on August 30th, 2011 
There is a constant flow of new tools to support the challenging work of managing your social media work. Managing the lists, posts, schedules, and conversations that create an effective social media presence for a business is a huge time and organizational commitment. Some of the tools created to support that work are wonderful, others not so much.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing about some of my favourite social media power tips and tools. These are all things that make it possible for someone like me, with a family and a thriving business with flesh-and-blood . . . → Read More: Nitro Pack 1: 4 Social Media Power Tips and Tools
By Clemens Rettich, on August 23rd, 2011 
Twitter hashtags (the # sign followed by a word, like #business) emerged organically from the early Twitter community as a way to create searchable keywords. If you think a certain term is common enough at any particular point in time (trending in social media lingo) you can turn it into a hashtag. Sophisticated Twitter users create searches based on those hashtags, and your post will show up on those searches.
If I’m not sure where to go eat in a new city, I’ll get on my smartphone, and enter in something like “Where’s a good place to eat in . . . → Read More: Twitter Hashtags: Saying Lots With Little
By Clemens Rettich, on August 14th, 2011 
In this humorous and revealing short article (The Klout Death Spiral) on Social Media Today, Leigh Dow explores the weird and wacky world of Klout.
Klout is a web site that purports to track your social influence on sites like Twitter and Facebook.
Here are some of my thoughts on Klout:
It doesn’t measure clout in any way that means anything to most independent professionals. What matters most to us is how engaged and valuable we are with and to our clients and potential clients. Case in point: in June, I was over the top supporting and acquiring clients. . . . → Read More: Klout and Clout. They are NOT The Same Thing!
By Clemens Rettich, on June 22nd, 2011 
Once, while on a run, I saw a guy taking a picture of an apple core on a picnic bench. He was using his cell phone.
I thought “People take pictures of everything now.”
Our hunger and capacity for recording the world around us, and our role in it, seems bottomless. Perhaps we should dispense with the labels like the information age or the digital age. Since the consumer adoption of the 45 RPM record after World War II, we have really been in the recording age. Digital technology has just taken recording capacity and availability to astonishing levels.
. . . → Read More: Vancouver: Riot or Reset?
By Clemens Rettich, on May 24th, 2011 
One of the most seductive aspects of online activity is the numbers game. It started 20 years ago with Web 1.0 ‘counters’ at the bottom of websites, and the game has never stopped. Blog followers, Facebook friends, Twitter followers, Google Analytics… and so many more ways of getting caught up in counting rather than connecting.
So when it comes to Twitter, are Tweeple (Twitter slang for people you connect with on Twitter) the same as people? If by people in business we are thinking possible and past customers, real fans of our businesses, suppliers, and authorities in our industry, . . . → Read More: Tweeple or People? Get Twitter Followers That Matter
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