Lately, people have been quick to shout that Google Plus has mostly inactive users, and I’m here to say, “yeah, so?”. One of these shocking pronouncements came about in August 2011, when Bimeanalytics put out an infographic that swept the tech news and had everyone shouting that 83% of Google Plus users are inactive, or on the flip side, only 17% are active. Bimeanalytics later withdrew this stat from their infographic, mentioning that it might not be accurate enough. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me to think it is accurate. Or at least as accurate as these things ever are. But I still say, “Yeah, so?”

In any case, every time someone releases stats about some social network, in regards to active users, there’s a great hubbub about it. I think everyone reading about these stats needs to do two things:

Take the numbers with a mountain of salt. Most of the stats presented will be guesstimations at best, and possibly so far wrong, that it’s simply a load of [place your favorite "load of x" word here].

Remember that a low instance of active users is the norm for any social group – online or offline – past or present. People join things, and then fail to participate. It happens. Raise your hand if you know anyone who has joined a gym, only to stop going soon afterwards. If you want some stats to visualize this real-world group activity, various reports over the years have declared that 40% of people who join health clubs stop going soon afterwards, with 90% stopping within the first 90 days.

People Are Lazy

Pick any activity online or off that requires any effort at all, and you’ll probably find a statistic that claims a large percentage of participants are really inactive.

People tend to jump on things they think they might enjoy doing, and then quickly fall back into their previous routine. Face it. People are lazy and most people may be comfortable following or lurking but rarely lead or even participate in the smallest of ways – in anything.

Historically Speaking

So before you condemn Google Plus or any other social network that may be involved in the “Stat of The Day”, keep in mind that the same kinds of things have been shouted about every other social network – even those that are popular. Let’s take a quick look through the short history of Twitter, just to lay the foundation.

• In the summer of 2009, Hubspot reported (pdf) that about 55% of 4.5 million Twitter accounts had NEVER TWEETED, and nearly 53% had NO followers.
• In January of 2010, Marketing Pilgrim informed us that according to a study put out by RJMetrics, the percentage of active Twitter users was 17%. (There’s that 17% number again – just like the one recently thrown around about Google Plus).
• Just two months later, in March of 2010, Mashable reported that a study by Barracuda Labs showed that only 21% of Twitter users were active and 34% had never tweeted even once.
• That same month, Business Insider reported that of 175 million accounts in February 2011, 56 million Twitter users followed no one, and 90 million had 0 followers.
• Skip ahead to August of 2011, and an infographic reveals just 5% of Twitter users create 75% of the content but 52% of Twitter users update their status every day, so the active users have seemingly risen to more than 52% – possibly much more.

We could probably all find many of these same types of stats on nearly any popular or once-popular social group, but I think this is enough to make my point.

Stop jumping on every hyped-up stat that someone throws out about how many active users Social Network X has or Social Network Y doesn’t have. The shocking numbers are probably just more of the same load of [place your favorite "load of x" word here] that you’ve seen umpteen times before.

Yes, Social Network X has mostly inactive users. So does Social Network Y, Local Community Group Z, and School Groups 1, 2, and 3. All the noise about this news is not news. It’s just noise.

Stats That Matter

1. What stats should you really be concerned with? Your own.
2. Which social networks make the most difference to you as an individual, and which makes the most difference to you as a solo or small business owner?
3. Where are the conversations taking place about your niche or product?
4. Monitor your stats. Set up search alerts to inform you of brand or niche mentions so you know which social networks have the most active users that you specifically care about.
5. Then realize that even the non-active users might still be influenced by your participation there, either directly or indirectly, so be active where it makes sense for you personally, and ignore all the rest of the noise.

When you’re done with that, go lurk somewhere. You know you want to!

Yes, I realize the title of this post is a tad bit misleading, but it was designed to be that way to make a point. Oh hey, be sure to connect with me on Google Plus, Twitter, and Facebook. There’s a good chance I’m an active user at one, some, or all of them, at one time or another. Maybe even 17% or 83% of the time.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 49 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google Plus, social networks, stats, Twitter
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Where most Web apps today are trying to be either the Twitter or the Facebook of their separate niche, Friendshuffle is out to be the StumbleUpon for Twitter and Facebook.

The idea is fairly simple. When you visit Friendshuffle, you connect it with your Twitter and/or your Facebook account and Friendshuffle, with a UI very similar to StumbleUpon, lets you “shuffle” through the sites and pages your friends have recommended.

It’s a fascinating concept, building a “stumble” layer on top of existing social networks, but there are several problems holding it back and keeping it from being more than a mere novelty.

What FriendShuffle Does Well

Everything about FriendShuffle is about as simple as you can make it. Once you connect your accounts, everything is controlled by two buttons, a “Shuffle” button that takes you to the next page and an “I Like it Too!” button that lets you send the page to your friends.

Though the service offers a tutorial in the form of popup bubbles on your first visit, it truly isn’t necessary. You’ll be up and shuffling in a matter of seconds.

Beyond that, the interface is clean and responsive and the app does a great job finding new content for you, starting with the most recent works and working its way backward.

All in all, though FriendShuffle itself doesn’t “do” much, what it does do, it does very well.

Where it Falters

First, there was a minor technical glitch with the service where my browser was blocking the popup to connect my Twitter account. It was easily fixed once I realized what was going on, but it isn’t a problem I see with other Twitter-connecting services.

Second, there is also a minor issue where connecting with the site via Twitter forces you to follow @FriendShuffle. For those who closely limit those they follow, this could be an annoying “feature” even though you can easily unfollow at any time.

The bigger problem though is the lack of filtering. You can’t select a list of friends to shuffle through nor can you limit your pages viewed to certain categories. This is one of the best features of StumbleUpon and its omission here is glaring.

The vast majority of links I Shuffled to had little interest to me and many were just promotional links posted by friends or businesses I follow. While they are fine in my Twitter stream, where I can choose to not click on them here, having them pull up blindly is annoying.

Getting tighter control over what links you see would really make this service much more useful, even if it meant going back farther. It could even be done by limiting the shuffle to a certain list or group, thus ensuring only friends who write about a certain topic are included.

Conclusions

In the end, FriendShuffle is a pretty slick time-waster but it really isn’t much more than an interesting concept begging for a more complete execution.

With the addition of filters and a means to control whose links you see, FriendShuffle could be a powerful tool for organizing and displaying the tsunami of links that come in over social networking sites.

As it is, it just isn’t as interesting as the sites it emulates and doesn’t make the best use of the sites it relies upon.

This guest post was written by Lior who works for an online task management start-up from new york and also advises an MBA abroad school.

© guestposter for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, Lior Levin, social media, stumbleupon, Twitter
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© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google Instant, Twitter
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In the beginning…when blogging and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook first became a part of our lives, it felt like this:

And Then We Caught The Need For Speed

I think it’s obvious to everyone that it’s getting harder and harder to keep up with everything these days. We are able to see it all streaming past us, and we recognize that much of it is forgotten within a second because something else is flying past us, looking to catch our attention. It now feels like this:

Personally, I’m finding this difficult for two reasons:

1. I can’t stay focused as well as I used to be able to do.
2. I can’t get YOUR attention as well as I used to be able to do.

Now, that second point will come off as just another marketing person whining about being unable to capture attention – and that’s ok – because that’s what it is! However, I strongly suspect that I’m not alone in this. I believe it’s becoming more and more difficult – verging on impossible – to capture the attention of the audience that anyone in business might be trying to reach.

Your Turn To Speak

What do you think? I’m keeping this post short because I want to hear your thoughts. I’d love to see this post become a real conversation, rather than me spouting off and you simply absorbing it – or more likely – forgetting you read this 2 seconds from now. Of course, that in itself would speak volumes, right? LOL. Anyway, I open this up to you – and your ideas – on ways to deal with the ever-increasing stream that we all find ourselves in. Your turn…comment below.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, Marketing, social media, social networks, Twitter
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With roughly 18 million registered users in the U.S. alone and a growth rate of about 3% each year, Twitter is arguably the fastest growing social media site in existence. In fact, about 19% of all adult Internet users are now on Twitter, up from 11% just a year ago.

Twitter use represents an undeniable trend in small business advertising. A 2009 survey by BIA/ Kelsey found that 32% of small businesses plan on incorporating social media into their marketing plan within the next 12 months. So, the question is, does Twitter really drive website traffic?

The answer lies in all the things you can do to promote your business with Twitter. When you consider the tools available to help you gain exposure, and the potential reach that social media has, spending a little time tweeting starts to look like a good idea.

If you’re thinking about marketing with Twitter, here are some tips to help you maximize results:

1. Network

To get the most out of your Twitter marketing efforts, target your group of followers. You can search for people with similar interests by using various tools such as Twitter lists or Tweet Works. Keep in mind that the primary goal of your strategy is to connect with both current and potential customers. So, joining groups where the most interested parties are likely to be found will save you a lot of time and effort and result in more leads.

2. Promote

Twitter is a microblogging site – that is, it only allows you 140 characters to say what you want to say. So, promoting with Twitter means that you have to be concise. Many people see this as an advantage, as you can skip the “small talk” and get right to the point. The combination of targeting your market and limiting your text means that you aren’t spending a lot of your valuable time in order to get results.

Use your 140 characters to link followers to your latest blog or article. Get a discussion going by presenting a question. Inform others of the latest news in your company or industry. Make your tweets interesting and attention-grabbing.

3. Update

One big advantage of Twitter as a marketing tool is the fact that it allows you to update your followers in real time. If you’re at a trade show or seminar, for example, you can inform followers of the latest developments as they happen, using your mobile device. You can post tweets quickly at any time. As the world starts to rely more and more upon immediate information, the timeliness of Twitter posts becomes even more critical to businesses.

4. Optimize

Every piece of text that you post on Twitter has the potential to rank in the search engines. Since SEO is so important to online visibility, you’ll want to try to optimize your tweets as much as possible. Think of your tweets as you do a blog, article or press release. Make headlines pop by using keywords that tell people (and search engines) what you’re talking about so you can be indexed properly.

5. Add value

Just as with your other content, such as your home page, blogs or directory articles, your tweets should always add value to the conversation. When Twittering socially, you can talk about what you had for breakfast. When using Twitter for marketing your business, stick to relevant, timely and useful content. It’s a good idea to research hot topics in your industry and get discussion going. Followers enjoy engaging and giving their opinions, especially when you’ve developed a reputation for interesting and informative debate.

When linking to other sites, always make sure that your tweet accurately reflects the content of the content you’re linking to. Contribute your insights whenever possible.

Can tweeting really drive traffic to your site? Yes, if you use it properly. When first starting out, it’s well worth your time to read the terms of service and research the various tools available to help you reach your market, track your results and organize your information.

And keep in mind that Twitter tweets shouldn’t be looked at in terms of individual posts so much as the impression all of your posts make over time. The value you create with your tweets will build your personal brand and serve your marketing objectives. For little time and effort, and very little money, you can drive traffic to your site, network with potential customers and build your brand! So, why not try Twitter and see what it can do for your business?

Beth Hrusch is Senior Editor at Interact Media, a content marketing software company

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: social media, Twitter
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Luckily for us, online advertising is generally a lot more affordable than offline advertising is. Still, it pays to be as frugal as we possibly can, so I wanted to give a few thoughts on making the most of our advertising budgets (no matter how meager they may be).

Of course, text ads are one of the first things that come to mind when discussing online advertising, and I’m not going to throw you any surprises here. Just as you would expect, I would recommend starting out with a Google Adwords account, and testing the waters with a small budget. I do recommend that you read as much as you can about the process however, so that you don’t accidentally shoot yourself in the foot and overspend (sometimes significantly) without even realizing it.

Next, spend some time creating some banner ads (or having them created if you aren’t graphically inclined). I recommend creating a minimum of 4 ad sizes, but 9 sizes is ideal. You can see all the standard IAB recommend ad unit sizes here, but my recommendations are as follows:

Four Sizes To Always Have Available

• 125×125
• 468×60
• 160×600
• 728×90

Five Additional Ad Sizes If Possible

• 120×240
• 120×600
• 300×250
• 180×250
• 336×250

Sites will very likely have ad spots available in one of the above sizes, so if you have ads already created and ready to go for any of those sizes, it will be easy to get your ad up and running quickly.

The next thing I would consider is having 2 or 3 variations of ads in each of those sizes. This will allow you to test each ad so that you know which works better. I recommend reading an interview that the Wildfire Marketing Group did, in which they explain when and how often to run the same ads versus testing different ads.

Once you have all of your ad banners created, your next task is finding available spots to place them. My favorite place to advertise is on blogs. Many blogs are set up to run 125×125 ad blocks, so if you have that size handy, it will be easy to arrange. You can either approach bloggers directly via email or Twitter, and arrange for an ad spot, or you can go through one of the many networks (such as buysellads.com) to find them. Most blogs will display ads for a month term at a fixed price (which is usually fairly low).

Finally, run your ads, run your tests, and track the results. Once you have some initial stats to look at, you can plan for the long term.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: advertising budgets, Google, offline advertising, online advertising, Twitter, WildFire Marketing Group
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Not Yet Started A Site:

• Write a 140-character elevator pitch. Condense what you do, or what your site is about into just 140 characters (not words…characters). If people “get it” in that short space, you’ve accomplished a lot. You can always use that elevator pitch on Twitter when needed.
• Determine what makes you different from the crowd. There’s always competition in any niche. That’s ok, but you need to think about how your site will be different from the competition.

Need More Traffic:

• Become known as the “something expert”. This could even be a very limited sub-sub-sub-niche of your main niche. The point is to share content that shows you really know your stuff about “something”, and do your best to get people to start linking to you as the “something expert” or “something guru”. (Obviously, your “something” will be different than my “something”. You know what you know best).

Need More Monetization Ideas:

• Create one extraordinary review of something each week. Make sure that something can be purchased via an affiliate link – either directly through the manufacturer, or via someplace like Amazon. (Remember: Amazon sells almost everything – it’s not just the place for books).

If you’ve already used these tips on your own, or just don’t have time right now, add them to a to-do list. You can implement many of the tips more than once, and you can always come back when you have time to tackle those you didn’t have time for.

Keep your Quick Tip Tuesday to-do list handy so you can add more later, and implement whenever you have some spare time.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Amazon, Twitter
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If you do any affiliate marketing at all – occasionally or as a large business – you should consider adding a new free tool that can make a huge difference in your affiliate earnings. This awesome new tool is a URL shortener called Cli.gs. For those of you who may not be familiar with URL shorteners, they are simply web tools that allow you to turn all those extremely long, extremely ugly URLs into nice short ones. The one most people are used to seeing and using is TinyURL, and although I give them respect for being around so long, they just no longer are the winners of the best URL shortener out there anymore. That honor goes to Cli.gs now, and Cli.gs has special features that are especially wonderful for anyone who has ever used an affiliate link on their site or blog.

Here are the main reasons why an affiliate marketer should use Cli.gs:

1. The affiliate URL is shortened and looks much less intimidating, and much more inviting to users. But of course, other URL shorteners do the same, so this one feature alone doesn’t put Cli.gs above the rest. But Cli.gs also allows you to rename the URL using user-friendly words, and that is very cool! Here’s an example. Let’s say you set up a Cli.gs URL pointing to a product page that is selling straw hats. You could rename the Cli.gs URL so that it would literally be http://cli.gs/strawhats. Can you see how inviting that URL is to visitors, as opposed to some random mix of letters and numbers, or a long affiliate code?
2. Cli.gs allows you to set up a private account (free) that lets you track statistics of every Cli.gs URL you use. What does that really mean? That means you can TRACK WHAT AFFILIATE URLS YOU’RE USERS CLICK ON. Yes, Cli.gs comes with its own analytics, so you are no longer in the dark. You know which ads work and which don’t! That is powerful information to have. You can create different Cli.gs URLs for different ad placements – all leading to the same affiliate URL. You’ll be able to test your ad placements and decide which section of your web page provides the best clickthrough rate for each affiliate you place! Or test different versions of link text for each affiliate link, and determine which is most clicked on by users. The amount of information you can gain from analyzing which affiliate links get clicked on most can improve your success rate – a lot! And you’ll never again wonder if the affiliate company is being honest about the amount of traffic you’re sending either!
3. Geotargeting – This one is extra cool. This feature is called Right Clig, and it allows you to set up Cligs with various alternative destination URLs that are targeted based on the visitor’s country. An example use would be if you wanted to direct UK visitors to Amazon’s UK URL and German visitors to Amazon’s German site. You would only use one Cli.gs URL on your page, but the rules you set up would determine where the visitor was from, so each user will be sent to the correct destination. This feature isn’t one that would be used in all of your affiliate links, but when appropriate, it can make a HUGE difference in your affiliate earnings.

Cli.gs has been the most exciting new thing I’ve used in a long time. It can literally change your affiliate marketing. Look, it’s free – and it’s extremely simple to use. If you’ve ever placed an affiliate link on any of your sites, I urge you to try this. You won’t really get how absolutely awesome this can be for you until you take a couple of minutes to try it out. No gimmicks. Just a straightforward tool that is easy to use, and gives back a wealth of information and usefulness for free. You can read more about Cli.gs on its blog, and you can follow Cli.gs on Twitter as well. Oh yeah, one other thing I forgot to mention – Cli.gs can automatically post new blog posts to Twitter, and since it has an API, any service can be hooked up in the same way. Trust me – Cli.gs is cool. It’s the affiliate marketer’s new best tool.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: affiliate marketer, Affiliate marketing, Amazon, awesome new tool, Cligs, free tool, short URL, straightforward tool, Twitter, United Kingdom, URL shortener
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

So, I’ve created the free Ad Rate Calculator for everyone to use. It doesn’t matter whether you are selling ad spots on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The time period doesn’t make a difference. You just need to determine the average amount of ad impressions the ad will receive during whatever time period you’re charging for. If you have the ad in your blog’s sidebar, that probably means it will appear on every page and post, so you just need to know the number of page views you average for each time period. Use your stats program (like Google Analytics or Clicky) to determine this information.

That’s the only piece of information you have to supply. The tool uses a default CPM rate*, but you can certainly change it to whatever you think is appropriate. If you are selling 300×250 ads instead of 125×125 ads for instance, you can charge roughly 4 times the rate because it is roughly 4 times the size, so adjust the CPM rate however you wish.

This calculator is only a tool. There is no standard rate out there. You can charge whatever the market will bear. However, for many of us, we don’t have an inkling of where to even begin. I designed this calculator as an easy starting point for you. I hope you like it. If you do, be sure to let others know about it as well. You can link to it, use it on your own site by using the popup code provided at the bottom of the calculator, or just let others know about it via Twitter, etc. Hopefully, by spreading the word, we can make everyone’s ad rate decisions a little easier.

Try the Ad Rate Calculator now.

*Definition of CPM rate here.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google, Twitter
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

First, you’ll need to go to your user page (mine is at http://www.twellow.com/user/dazzlindonna, so substitute your username for mine). Then, click the Claim Your Profile link and enter your Twitter password.

Now, you’re able to edit your profile and categories. Notice that the instructions say “To add yourself to additional categories simply browse through Twellow and click the Add to category buttons found throughout the site next to the category names. You are limited to 10 categories in addition to any automatically determined by the system.” So, while you can verify the original categories, or delete categories from this page, you’ll need to add new categories from the site itself.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll see that you’ve verified your profile and can login and edit your changes at any time in the future.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: categories, edit profile, Twellow, Twitter
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.