Top 10 Social Networking Things to Do by Zennie Abraham

This Top 10 Social Networking Things to Do blog post is an update of an older post from 2009. It contains some refinements in an approach that's worked very well for this blogger.

My friends come to me for advice in this area all the time, so I created this "Top 10" list of actions to take in using social networks to get yourself noticed online. (I'm going to add to this later, with more detail but watch the video for more background.)

The objective here is not just to get yourself noticed, but to also protect your identity.  By being everywhere, and with the same name and photo, you create your "look" such that it's harder for anyone else to not only pretend to be you, but to alter your online persona.   In other words,  by having your name already online, it guards against and overwhelms any other view of you that's posted online.   To do this, you have to be on as many platforms as possible.

Top 10 Social Networking Things to Do

1.Figure out your name. (I’m Zennie Abraham, Zenophon Abraham and Zennie62)
2.What do you want to get out of this? (Business? pleasure? Information? If you’re in the business of pleasure that’s another story.)
3.Figure out your title: CEO? Producer? Party Animal?
4.Develop an email list. Remember, email is still a form of social networking.
5.Find a photo you’re proud of and nothing with you wearing a gorilla suit. (It does work for some but I don’t recommend it.)

6.Business?
a.Join Linkedin
b.Join Ryze (Great small business membership base in the Bay Area.)
c.Join Plaxo
d.Join Facebook and turn off the relationship notifications. (We don't need

know that you're dating Sven Nordgarden.
e. Join H5
f. Join Foursquare.com
g. Join YouTube.com


7.Pleasure?
a.Join MySpace
b.Join Facebook
c.Join FriendFeed
d. Join Brightkite.com
e. Join Foursquare.com
f. Join YouTube.com


8.Information?
a.Join FriendFeed
b.Join Facebook
c.Join Technorati (I recommend creating a blog and then posting it as your website of choice in their system.)
d. If sports-related, join MakeitPro.com 
e. Join Brightkite.com
f. Join Foursquare.com
g. Join YouTube.com

Now some of you may find the inclusion of YouTube confusing, but it's a social network, not just a video distribution site. Moreover, it's a powerful identify-protection tool for this purpose, so long as you use your name and don't call yourself "Ardvark".

9.Set up a blog – put your resume in it without your phone number. That’s your free website. I prefer Blogger.com. It’s free. Make the blog title your name. Why? To mark your place with your name on cyberspace. Link to it from your social network profile. The point is to begin to protect your name and identity by having something out there you made about you, not someone else.

10.Use your email signature as the place for your links to your Linkedin Page and Blog page. (Now you have two places pointing at your blog page, which helps with SEO and to have others see your resume.)

A word on Twitter.

Twitter is not a social network, it's a communications system and you need to have something to say to use it. It's volume-based; the more you post the more valued your account because people will follow you looking for interesting posts, or what are called "tweets". I think of Twitter as an accessory to a social network not a replacement for one.

Twitter is very misunderstood by people in business. To continue my current favorite organization to pick on, just because it needs to improve, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) does not have a Twitter account.  How could a Twitter account - and a blog - benefit AMPAS?  I'll demonstrated via this scenario:

The Academy makes a mistake and leaves out Farrah Fawcett from its Memorial Tribute portion of the 2010 Oscars.  To deal with the negative press it does the following:

1) Issues an apology on the AMPAS blog, which because it's connected to the AMPAS Twitter account, also goes out to AMPAS Twitter followers, and because the AMPAS Twitter account is connected to AMPAS on Facebook, it's posted to Facebook too.

2) AMPAS issues a press release based on the blog contents.

3) AMPAS asks its Twitter followers (hopefully over 1 million) to retweet the initial message.

4) AMPAS then makes a video-embeded blog post that's a "Tribute to Farrah Fawcett" and then does one blog post for each of the other actors that were missing.  That too goes out via Twitter, one for each performer, and it goes to Facebook.

What will happen is each AMPAS blog post link is heightened by the click rates that will happen from being part of a tweet.  That will raise the blog post pages in a search for "Farrah Fawcett and Academy" and thus more people will see the AMPAS apology and the online tribute.

End result: message is efficiently sent and the online tracks are seeded with tributes so that as the issue dies down, a track record that the Academy did something is in place.

PodTech: Tech Media Company That Got $7.5 Million Sold For $500,000

In what has to mark as a disappointing end to a company with a lot of promise, I learned that PodTech, the tech media company which publishes online and downloadable videos about new technology and at one point featured video bloggers like Robert Scoble and Irina Slutsky, and raised $7.5 million in 2006, sold for just $500,000.

That's right.

The main reason was a difference between the managers in determining where the company should place it's focus. Plus, it was losing the original talent. CEO John Furrier left the company last year. Robert Scoble gave this take at Friend Feed with a chime in by Furrier and others...:

I'm cool with telling the story. I just need a couple of glasses and wine and a lot of time to tell it first. Podtech was screwed up by a number of decisions. Everyone played a part, but I sure learned a lot about how a company can screw up big time. Major learnings for me? 1. Have a story. 2. Have everyone on board with that story. 3. If anyone goes off of that story, make sure they get on board immediately or fire them. PodTech did none of the three and I'm sorry for my part in not making the three happen - Robert Scoble

That's the cool thing about you, Scoble...you're human and admit it too! - Sean McGee

Not all ventures succeed though. How many 'fail' for those that succeed? It pays to take a pragmatic view. I think it's a hot market, and the impetus to succeed is high, eventually some will break - Mo Kargas

Other things I learned: 1. Make sure people are judged by the revenues they bring in. Those that bring in revenues should get to run the place. People who don't bring in revenues should get fewer and fewer responsibilities, not more and more. 2. Work ONLY for a leader who will make the tough decisions (see above). 3. Build a place where excellence is expected, allowed, and is enabled. 4. Fire idiots quickly (didn't happen at PodTech -- even if you count me as one of the idiots). - Robert Scoble
We get so much coverage of companies when they launch, when they're growing, etc. I'm hoping that someone writes an in-depth piece on what went wrong at PodTech so that entrepreneurs can learn from this. There is so much that you can learn from failures. - Mike Doeff

Other things I learned: 1. if your engineering team can't give a media team good measurements, the entire company is in trouble. Only things that are measured ever get improved. 2. When your stars aren't listened to the company is in trouble. 3. When your stars start leaving (Gillmor and Owyang left before I did) the company is in trouble. 4. Getting rid of the CEO, even if it's all his fault, won't help unless you replace him/her with someone who is visionary and who can fix #1,2,3. - Robert Scoble

Mike: I'm not going to be the one who writes that. Much of the worst stuff is too personal. Failures of companies often happen around failures at the leadership level. Telling why things failed means telling off investors, executives, and others (and even me). Not likely to happen because that'd mean burning bridges and I'm just not willing to do that. These people have too many friends. :-) - Robert Scoble

My vote is for assimilation into something bigger. They bought it to "right the wrongs" and flip it to someone else. Heck, at 500k, it's a bargain right now...IF things are cleaned up. - Bradley McSpinn

Brad: almost all of the talent left. What's left now is not much that's worth much. The revenues came because of our social media leadership. That's what Furrier really had in his hands. Owyang. Me. Cunningham. Jones. Gillmor. The rest of the stuff was a pipe dream that didn't lead anywhere, which is really why the company burned through $7 million (plus several million in revenues). - Robert Scoble

I am going to write an in depth post on this story. It's huge. There are many lessons. Scoble's view is from his perspective but there is a big picture that goes way beyond Scoble's view and that has to do with building a company from a zero stage. I've moved on from a year ago after I was forced out by the board. We made some mistakes but directionally correct. Sure if I had a mulligan things might be different but a business strategy, financing strategy, and team strategy are part of the story.. - John Furrier

john: I am looking forward to your post. - Robert Scoble

There are many lessons to learn that I'll post about. PodTech had a great chance and pioneered some of the best practices in social media. One thing that I'll talk about is the difference between self financed growth strategies and venture backed growth strategies. - John Furrier

Looking forward to your posts John. - Thomas Hawk

I'm looking at this from way on the outside. The value of my perspective is that I know nothing about internal management, visions, discussions, factions, or what have you. All I can say is that from afar, I never got any brand coherence from PodTech. Was it news? paid corporate marketing videos? analysis? community? There were some powerful personal brands--I still follow them in the PodTech diaspora--but it felt they never cohered into a PodTech identity. (That doesn't mean losing personal identity.) - Michael Markman

Michael: exactly. We never played together as a team. It is why entrepreneurs need different skills after they start their companies. It is not enough to sell people on a dream. You must coach your way to it too. - Robert Scoble

What's interesting to me and the sign of a real problem is to have $7.5 million and burn through it, then wind up with a company worth just $500K.

With all this, there are some who think Podcasting is failing, but there are many signs this is not true, including the success of shows like "Ask A Ninja" which pulls in money from sponsorship.

But overall, my personal feeling is that people are lazy and don't want to download anything if they don't have to. That's why I focused on online browser-based sim games like the Oakland Baseball Simworld, rather than downloadable ones.

In the end, it's eyeballs and not downloads that matter and pay, too.