I’ll give you a hint… it’s NOISE.

Wanna cut through the clutter? Find out how in the video…or skip ahead and sign up for my FREE Coffee & Convo calls that begin this Monday morning. Yes, start your week off right and wrap your head around your social plan for the week.

So, will you join me?

Filed under: Advice, blog, blogging, brand, Coaching, Facebook, foursquare, marketing, social media, Social Networks, Twitter, youtube

The Blogging Success Summit has started, and Richard Jalichandra (CEO, Technorati), gave the keynote address last night. When you claim and have your blog verified by Technorati or Google or other blog verification service, it helps drive traffic to your blog and lends more credibility to you and it. I thought that was an interesting tidbit that I wanted to share with you.

The Capable Manager has a short, well-written blog post on how to list your blog on Technorati, so I’ll send you there for the details, but I encourage you to do so in order to help you build your blogging business.

Filed under: Advice, blogging, social media, technology, technorati

The best part was that I ended up sitting next to an IT guy who owns his own Server Provider business in Nashville. We started getting into a heavy conversation about iPads and the technology behind them. The potential of a tablet or iPad to revolutionize how everyone does business is incredible. I have been to cafes and retail locations that use the iPad to process all of their credit card payments using one of the available credit card processing apps. I’ve also just watched a presentation about the Avaya Flare and it is essentially an iPad on steroids. It is a way for businesses to do live meetings without having to rely on the mostly lo-res Skype or other software. Business owners can share presentation material, dial members via drag-and-drop, and tons of other cool features.

I was incredibly grateful to receive an iPad for Christmas, but was personally holding out until the iPad is released with a camera (a la iPhone G4 version). I’d love to be able to do Facetime on an iPad instead of an iPhone for the simple fact that the screen is larger! I am also hoping for some kind of software that combines Facetime with Keynote so you can do presentations without having to pay for the cost of the Avaya.

There are all sorts of different apps for the iPad, and I’m really digging on the digital books. I didn’t want to like them because I love the smell of ink on paper, but it is awfully convenient if you’re on a plane. In fact, the weight and size are perfect for travel for me, because I can catch up on my emails, watch movies, read books, listen to music, surf the web and access any app I need to while traveling. It’s not cumbersome, and it’s a great conversation starter!

Do you have an iPad? What’s your favorite part about owning one?

Filed under: blogging, technology

At the end of the panel, one of the audience questions asked during the Q&A was “What blogs do you read?” Christopher Penn’s Marketing Over Coffee podcast was actually one of the top answers to a question about blogs, but let’s face it, when they are that good, it’s gonna happen. Brian Solis and Chris Brogan were also mentioned, as was Brogan’s book Trust Agents given the “must read” tag.

I thought I’d add a few more to the list of blogs and/or newsletters that I find valuable:

1. Jay Baer, who can be found at Convince and Convert, does a great job of singling out his top three choices for what’s neato in the industry at 3-2-1.

2. Inside Facebook — When Facebook became more than a relationship status social network, and took over the net, I knew it was time to keep up. Inside Facebook, as well as Mari Smith’s blog are great ways to get a heads-up on the face.

3. Social Media Examiner — the “little blog that could” now boasts a cajillion Facebook fans, and Michael Stelzner has created one of the premiere series’ Facebook Success Summit and coming in February, Blogging Success Summit. He has over 50 top-notch contributors to the blog, including Jason Falls, who I think is the bee’s knees.

4. My Escape Velocity – Chris Brogan’s other blog where his A-list compadres lay out the good stuff on how to reach your own escape velocity and make stuff happen.

5. Social Fresh — Jason and his Social Fresh approach to marketing conferences was a nice way to start out 2010 here in Nashville at the Maxwell House Hotel. He has a great collection of bloggers filling in the marketing blanks daily.

6. Mashable — a given, even if a bit overwhelming with the number of articles in any one newsletter.

7. Brass Tack Thinking – Amber’s Altitude Branding blog evolved into a duo effort and proved that there’s strength in numbers. Two smart, savvy women getting down to brass tacks.

8. UnMarketing — ugh. What can I say. I think Scott is the unmarketing messiah. He seriously gets it, and he gets that it doesn’t have to be that serious to be the real deal. Be awesome, and spread it. And you should really buy his book (aff link) for the footnotes alone. You will walk away from it smarter.

9. This blog, of course — Social Deviants — I think we’ve got some stuff to say you might find interesting or even useful.

10. Find blogs OUTSIDE of the marketing industry — ones on writing, traveling, trendwatching, book clubs, self-help, bird watching, cooking, anything. Marketers can not live on bread alone.

What/Who did I miss?

Filed under: Advice, blog, blogging, Facebook, marketing

We, Social Deviants, started with a blog — this blog, but on Blogger, not WordPress. Within two months we had clients. Again, with 0nly a blog. We had our personal Twitter and Facebook accounts, but, unless you’re a close friend or family, you don’t have access to my Facebook account. I reserve that for the obligatory pictures and posts of my son as he achieves every milestone or trivial “kids are a hoot” moment. My twitter account is definitely more business-centered, but only because it’s passion-centered, and the two often cross paths. We did go ahead and grab our @SocialDeviants Twitter profile just so we could stake the claim on the name (Unlike my personal account, which was my full name until I got married. However, there must be a lot of Janet Wallaces out there because I could only grab my nickname @Jae_Wallace after I tied the knot.).

Social Deviants has been around for a year now, and has only just begun to get our Facebook page and company-branded twitter account off the ground. Some might consider this a travesty against all things social media. Yet, we have spoken at conferences, and we have just wrapped up a six-month signature series called Drinks & Apps, which was sponsored by the Nashville chapter of Ladies Who Launch, where we demystified social applications for entrepreneurs. Personally, I was invited to join the faculty of the Room to Write program at Scarritt-Bennett Center here in the heart of Nashville, speaking and working with published and aspiring authors on how to build their online marketing platform. I will also be hosting a workshop at the Writer’s Loft at MTSU (Middle Tennessee State University) in mid-January, and there’s plenty more on tap in 2011.

How can you call yourselves a social media company without having a Facebook page or a dedicated Twitter account? Well, we don’t call ourselves that. We’re a social marketing company. However, the answer to that question is that timing, luck and generosity played their parts, but it boiled down to doing more of those spokes on the marketing and business wheel I mentioned earlier. It sure wasn’t because we had some magic formula that we sprinkled over our social media spaces. That being said, now with the month slowing down just long enough before the explosion of the new year is upon us, we are spending more of our time on Facebook and Twitter, as well as on our blog. And, in the new year, we’ll be adding videos, webinars and more to our offerings. The bottom line is — we can share with you more than a dozen links of high-quality marketing information from people way more qualified that us. We don’t need to re-invent the wheel. We just need to make sure it keeps spinning.

So, if people tell you that you need this or that or your business is doomed, take it with a grain of salt. Be prepared so that when luck, timing and generosity find you, you’re able to share and serve. But a wise man once told me (Scott Stratten of @UnMarketing), “If you’re going to have a presence, be present.” And if you’re not ready, not prepared, don’t have anything to say today or are just plain slammed doing all the trillion other things you need to do to get your business going, then please, for the love of the social marketing gods, do not create a page a blog, a newsletter, a profile or any other account.

Are people talking about your product or service? Probably. Do you need to be there? Probably. However, when and how you get there and when and how you deliver your content, may take a different path from what “they” say you should do (and I’m including me in that ‘they’). There’s nothing worse better than being a social deviant. Blaze your own trail.

Filed under: Advertising, Advice, blog, blogging, Conferences, Facebook, marketing, social media, Social Networks, Twitter, youtube

For example, I’ve been looking for ways to syndicate my favorite tweets, blog posts, etc. to all my networks without having to manually login every time. Hootsuite makes it ridiculously easy with their RSS feature. You literally plug-and-play. If you can find a feed to the content you’re trying to share, you can add it to any account you want. (Update: Hootsuite is now asking for $5.99/month to use enhanced features like RSS for more than 2 accounts – click here for full details).

Also, Hootsuite’s developers were smart when they decided to stick to the main social networks: Twitter, Facebook (pages & personal profiles), MySpace, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress and FourSquare. That means they can focus their resources on the key ones without diversifying their offerings beyond capacity. In lamens terms, it works. What can be so powerful is setting up networks first through Ping.fm (check out their website for complete listings!), then making sure you “ping” Ping.fm through Hootsuite. It’s a dashboard for your dashboard!

That is actually a point that can be hard to comprehend for those of us just starting out in the social web. Hootsuite is a web application that you can launch on any web browser to access and update multiple networks, without wasting your time logging in and manually updating every one of them. Hootsuite’s help desk says it best:

Rather than being a social network, HootSuite allows you to connect to multiple social networks from one website.

HootSuite helps organizations use the social web to launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels.

Using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard, teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, WordPress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms plus track campaign results and industry trends to rapidly adjust tactics.

…and I haven’t even mentioned how powerful their analytics tools are for their URL shorteners.

What online tool are you using to help facilitate your social media efforts? Have you tried Hootsuite? Let us know what you think!

Filed under: blogging, Facebook, goals, marketing, social media, Social Networks, Twitter