Thank you!

I recently wrote a post for Andy's Goode Life and you can check it out here.

I haven't tried my hand at fiction writing in a while and all her kind words have really inspired me. These are some of the nicest comments I have received about anything I've done to date.

So...

Thank you!

My Really Goode Video

Well folks. It is up. My ridiculous video application for Murphy-Goode's Really Goode Job is live for the world to see. Shot in about an hour including teaching my wonderful girlfriend how to use the camera (thanks for putting up with me)! Another hour to cut it together and voila! I know about the spelling error on the last title card. I think I am going to play it off as "tiwtter" is a cool new site y'all haven't even heard of yet. Anyway, check it out and please vote for it here!

Thanks for your support!

Shaun

A Really Goode Job Description

Anyone can say they have a really good job. Hell, just having a job these days is really good, but how many people can say they have a really goode job? If you didn’t catch what I did there, I added an ‘e’ to the end of the word to make it better (much like a shoppe is like a shop, but more expensive).

Well, Murphy-Goode Winery is offering just such a really goode job. It is a six-month gig blogging, networking, and producing web videos to expand the brand’s social network presence. Did I mention that the job pays $10,000 a month? Not bad, eh? Then you ask, how can I get in on that loot?

Well, you make a video, of course. Then you get all your friends to visit the site and vote on your video. Neat huh? The best video wins the really goode job.

Here’s the fun part! This job isn’t worth $60,000 to the company. Any Joe with a facebook page can be a social networker. The only qualification for such a position is generally to be a nice person (harder than it seems to find sometimes). And, as soon as the six-month carnival in dreamland is over Joe will be hired at a much more reasonable salary and life will go on just as it always has.

You see, the $60,000 is not for six months of work. It is for three months of craziness that this application process creates. It is a similar to the principals of a sweepstakes. The hullabaloo generates at least $60,000 worth of brand awareness if not more. If you think of it this way, Murphy Goode is getting six months of work out of someone for free!

You may remember when Tourism Queensland used a similar strategy to find a new web 2.0 guru and promote its brand through a worldwide video contest. I can only hope that this sort of scheme catches on. It appears to be greatly beneficial to the company and it gives some poor sap steady income for half a year.

I would also like to point out that this game makes friends with the web 2.0 community, which has been known to have the power to lift an entity from obscurity to stardom, but also to rip to shreds anything it might deem unwelcome. I would say anytime an organization decides to embrace this community and even try to cater to it is a really goode thing.

So, I just read through this post again and realized how horribly cynical I come off. I would just like to make it absolutely clear that any cynicism is born entirely from jealousy. I would also like it to be known that I totally made a video last night and submitted my application. Who wouldn’t want to be that “poor sap” if only for six months?

I feel bad, ok!

I know I haven't posted in quite a while, but the gears are turning in the old noggin and I have some plans for my blog's future. Stay tuned!

...please

-Shaun

What to do with all of this???

I got this very kind message on my Facebook the other day and I thought it was worth answering here on the blog.

The question is, what do I do with this huge social network once I have acquired it?

First off, Katie proposes a fantastic solution to the question. Send a message to your 400 Facebook friends or post a status update that would refer them all to your gym and you are in the money, provided that they remember to drop your name. I love it!

Social media marketing works in the same way. Amass a large network of personal connections and profit from them. As far as I know, Katie is not a small business or a large corporation trying to sell some outstanding product to as many people as possible so gym membership referrals might sound like a good idea, but there are certainly other things that can be accomplished by a large social network on the web.

My favorite solution is somewhat selfless. Let's say Katie needs signatures on a petition or wants to raise awareness for a cause. A large, online, social network can be the perfect place to get people participating. As long as Katie has maintained strong personal relationships with her online communities they are certainly more likely to listen. It is much easier and more effective than soliciting to strangers on the street.

Big brands are certainly not the only ones benefiting from large online social networks. Much can be accomplished by little people with lots of friends. The key word here is, of course, FRIENDS.

Creating huge social networks without any personal interaction is absolutely useless! I can't stress that enough, especially if you are not big brand, which people expect to sell them stuff. It is in the individual's best interest (as well as the big brand, if you are listening) to keep personal relationships his/her highest priority. A 'Facebook friend' should be no different from a 'friend' and communication should be kept open. You never know when you might need your 400 Facebookers or 3000 Twitterers or whatever connections you have.

Be a nice person and interact with other nice people as much as possible. You will need them eventually and, certainly, they will need you!

Facebook: When To Post Your Big Announcement

Facebook is obviously a really fantastic way to connect to people and with its ever-growing population the connections can get numerous indeed. It is important to use those connections to their utmost potential. The idea, of course, is to get people talking about you as much as possible and it is looking like, timing matters. People Facebook (as a verb) more at some times than at others and capitalizing on those peak moments could mean the difference between selling one widget and selling one hundred.

First, let's talk about good Facebook practice. Facebook can be a complicated beast with many different ways to interact with people. However, some methods can be more effective than others. The News Feed feature is the bread and butter of Facebook these days. It is the first thing you see after login and provides easy navigation through all the updates that concern you. Ideally, you should be updating your profile daily* just to show up on your friends' and fans' news feeds. Notice that I asterixed the hell out of "daily." Updates are helpful, provided you have something interesting to share. Too many updates on what you ate for breakfast will quickly become "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and when you post "The Wolf" no one will listen. I would rather miss a day of updates than write crap in my status bar.

Great! Now you have some big news you want to share with the world! You want to get people talking about it, clicking through to your website, pushing it on their friends, etc. Awesome! Who doesn't? It turns out there are specific times durring the week that Facebookers seem to be more active. Mid-week (Wednesday to be exact) sees much more activity than any other day. These are not people "checking their Facebook." This is when they are responding to posts, giving thumbs up to status changes, writing on walls, interacting on every level. You want to get on as many peoples' news feeds as possible early in the day (Tuesday evening if possible) and spend the entire day responding to posts, clarifying details, driving traffic, etc. Facebook can easily be run on autopilot most of the time, but if you know that there is going to be a surge in user interaction on a particular day it is certainly a good idea to provide personal feedback and communication.

With more and more social network communities popping up on the web, no one can be expected to devote all of their time to one such as Facebook, but capitalizing on the one day per week that users are at their most interactive can be an extremely valuable use of time.

**A weekly breakdown of online social network activity.

Phase IV Wrap-Up #4

Total Activity

Phase IV Wrap-Up #3

Total Popularity

Phase IV Wrap-Up #2

Phase IV Popularity

Phase IV Wrap-Up #1

Phase IV Activity

Friday, April 3

• Facebook: No activity
• Twitter: 4 new followers
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Nothing from Facebook. Apparently people have better things to do on a Friday than write on my wall. Twitter keeping its constant growth and StumbleUpon is back down to it's dreary self. Well folks, this is it. The end of Phase IV. I will be posting graphs and getting some overall results throughout the day. Thanks again to everyone who read this.

Thursday, April 2

• Facebook: 1 status comment, 2 wall posts
  
• Twitter: 3 new followers
• StumbleUpon: 1 new subscriber

Two days in a row for StumbleUpon! Not bad, eh? Twitter is still on the map and is now finally competing with Facebook. One more day of the experiment. I am officially giving the ok to SPAM the crap out of my accounts to spike the graph at the end. Have fun!

Wednesday, April 1

• Facebook: 4 wall posts
• Twitter: 4 new followers
• StumbleUpon: 1 new subscriber

Yay! StumbleUpon! Better late than never, I suppose. Twitter is still going strong probably because you can't go anywhere without seeing or hearing something about Twitter. I was watching CNN and they were using tweets (displayed as a 'cool' montage) to see student reactions to the UCSD admissions fiasco. I'm afraid I am going to go ahead and call this one a fad. The bubble will burst (hopefully not anytime soon). Anyway, I guess make your connections now while the bubble is still growing.

If the bubble bursts will we find ourselves in a Twitter recession?

Tuesday, March 31

• Facebook: 2 status comments, 1 photo comment
• Twitter: 5 new followers
• StumbleUpon: No Activity

Still nothing from StumbleUpon, but I continue to be surprised by Twitter. Facebook is relatively the same and the more I check, the more I think it bears absolutely no merit to this experiment. However, it makes me feel better about myself, so that has to count for something. I am currently obsessed with Slash7's www.twistori.com so check that out if you get a chance. It is a cute little web application based off of Jonathan Harris's We Feel Fine (www.wefeelfine.org).

Monday, March 30

• Facebook: 3 wall posts
• Twitter: 2 new followers
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Pretty much what I expected for a Monday. I have the day off today, so I am going to go ahead and "super-nerd" it. That means blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, and even Stumbling on the go. Wish me luck. Also, if anyone needs anything from IKEA, let me know.

Phase IV

Here we go. The final week of the experiment. I will be stepping it up this week with a whopping five tweets, follow five new people, subscribe to five new stumblers, review five new websites, and as always, update my Facebook profile. Thanks for staying with me, it seems to be working out as expected with some pretty staggering returns. Five updates per day is quite a bit. The work during Phase III was pretty hectic as it was with three. It is certainly a full-time job. I find this unbelievably exciting. This is a job that didn't exist five years ago.

So, who fills this position. You knew these kids in high school. I will call them the "social nerd." You know, that hipster-type that happens to be really interesting and funny and people seem to hang on their every word, but happen to have some knowledge of technology. "Knowledge" might not be the right word. Let's use "love." I know, it is a strong word, but how else do you describe it. It is not that they are 100% computer nerds, but they get excited about a new piece of software, or a new way to use a new technology. I use "new" a lot, but you know these are the kind of people who claim that the original Nintendo is the greatest system of all time. The throw-back is important. Maybe that is how they use the nerdyness to relate to people. Let's get back to the concept of "new" and I will go ahead and separate that term from "cutting-edge." It is not on the social nerd to necessarily develop the next big technology, but to use it in a new way. Facebook is a good example; a true social network meant to connect people to eachother. It seems like a simple step, but a profound one to use it to connect businesses to the users. Let me explain the "how" and "why" this works in one sentence. And please quote the hell out of me.

"The business is a user."

You all have a Facebook account, most of you have a Twitter account, even some of you use StumbleUpon (in the "correct" way) and you know what they are for and how to use them. It is NO different if you are doing it from the perspective of a giant corporation. That is why it works. Pretend the corporation is a person who talks the same way a person talks. People don't want to connect to big businesses, they want to connect to people who have something interesting to say. The social network presence of the business is then concentrated into one position, one person, one social nerd.

Phase III Wrap-Up #4

Total Activity

I thought this might be an interesting graph for your guys. It shows the daily activity of the 3 sites. As you can see mid-week is usually the high-traffic days (Wednesday and Thursday). It may be more clear by the end of next week, but it is looking good that my hypothesis might be correct. The networks have certainly responded to my increased involvement. See you tomorrow for the start of Phase IV.

Phase III Wrap-Up #3

Total Popularity

Phase III Wrap-Up #2

Phase III Popularity
(Facebook starts at 0)

Phase III Wrap-Up #1

Phase III Activity

Friday, March 27

• Facebook: 1 wall post, 2 event invites
  
• Twitter: 2 new followers
• StumbleUpon: No activity

So, bad news: I had to fire my editor and I sincerely apologize for any confusion caused by the incorrect date on yesterday's post.

Twitter is still holding strong, thank goodness and I have been following some extremely interesting Twitterers. ...Twitteri? ...Twats? StumbleUpon is still bust and Facebook remains about the same. Also, you may notice, this is the end of Phase III, so you can expect some graphs to be up soon.

Thursday, March 26

• Facebook: 4 video comments, 3 wall posts, 1 person liked my status
  
• Twitter: 1 new follower
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Facebook is back on top, but Twitter is still getting some activity. Still no love from StumbleUpon. I think the majority of people don't realize how much can be done with StumbleUpon. I use it for habitual stumbling as much as the next guy (32,525 stumbles to date), but I also use it to review websites I like, find people with similar interests, etc. Don't get me wrong, injecting thousands of random websites directly into my mind-vein like it's heroin has its place, but as any addict will tell you, the connection with fellow junkies is the heart and soul of a good habit.

Wednesday, March 25

• Facebook: Tagged in 2 videos, 8 comments on videos
• Twitter: 4 new followers
• StumbleUpon: No activity

I've checked the videos, I can't find myself in either of them, so I'm not sure why I was tagged. Yes, it is shameless that I would count it in this experiment, but rules are rules. Now Twitter is a different story. I am actually getting real numbers up there. I hope people are actually reading the tweets and checking out this blog. It has been crazy since the MIT Enterprise Forum on Web 2.0 so I think a lot of the activity might have something to do with that.

Still no love from StumbleUpon. It might be too early to tell and I won't have a solid answer until the end of Phase IV, but getting subscribers to your interests might take a bit more than reviewing websites and giving thumbs ups. We shall see.

Tuesday, March 24

• Facebook: 1 person liked my status
  
• Twitter: No activity
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Not much going on, but I have a feeling it will pick up soon.

I attended an extremely interesting talk last night hosted by the MIT Enterprise Forum of Chicago about Promoting Your Business Using Web 2.0. Moderated by Flashpoint CEO (my boss) Howard Tullman and featuring panelists Jason Fried, founder of 37signals.com and Harper Reed, CTO for Threadless.com. In short, Twitter is a hell of a resource, Digg has become an unusable joke, and as, always, CONTENT MATTERS! "It helps that we have something to sell." Unlike far too many social network possibilities in which all revenue comes from ads. The panelists discussed how using Web 2.0 content can revolutionize traditional eCommerce firms.

Monday, March 23

• Facebook: 1 wall post
• Twitter: 1 new follower
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Not bad Twitter. Facebook could step it up a bit. StumbleUpon, FALL IN!!! Busy day yesterday, so I could not spend much time promoting my internet popularity. I did have a chance to meet the DP of WALL-E, so I guess it was worth it. Keeping up with the three-a-day schedule of Phase III has been a bit of a chore, but not too bad so far. I never thought I would say this, but I'm going to anyway. It is getting hard to find the time to spend on the internet. There, I've said it. I can't take it back now.

Now, brave audience(?) you have nothing to fear. I will stay diligent with my plan.

Phase III

Today marks the beginning of Phase III. Everyday I will be updating my Facebook profile, following three new people on Twitter, sending three tweets, subscribing to three new people on StumbleUpon and reviewing three new websites. Things are picking up after Phase II so lets see what happens when I triple my activity. As always, if anyone would like to suggest ways to better the experiment please comment. Also, looking for followers on this blog, if you are interested.

Phase II Wrap-Up #3

Total Popularity

Phase II Wrap-Up #2

Phase II Popularity
(Facebook starts at 0)

Phase II Wrap-Up #1

Phase II Activity

Friday, March 20

• Facebook: 2 wall posts, 1 new message
• Twitter: 2 new followers
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Well folks, this wraps up Phase II of our little experiment. The graphs are on their way so stay tuned for some hard core comparison action! That sounded kind of weird and I apologize. Anyway, enjoy the data.

Thursday, March 19

• Facebook: 3 wall posts, 2 people liked my status, 1 event invite
• Twitter: No activity
  
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Sorry to be posting this so early. I have a full day tomorrow and won't get around to much blogging. Anyway, in an obvious response to Wednesday's post, Facebook stepped up its game. If you are curious, my status that got so much attention was, "In Soviet Russia blogs write you!"

Proving once again, that content matters. Telling people what you ate for breakfast over twitter is no match for a solid Yakov Smirnoff line.

Wednesday, March 18

• Facebook: No activity
• Twitter: No activity
• StumbleUpon: 1 new subscriber

Surprisingly nothing from Facebook, but StumbleUpon got its first hit! Phase I seems to be shaping up to be a bust. Lets hope that with a little more activity in the next 2 weeks we can pick it up. Thank you to everyone (anyone) who has been reading so far.

Tuesday, March 17

• Facebook: 1 event request, 1 other request, 1 new message
• Twitter: no activity
• StumbleUpon: no activity

Not much going on this very fine Tuesday. However, the warm weather and sunshine does quite a bit to take my mind off the web.

As well as updating my Facebook profile, I have been diligently tweeting and reviewing websites with StumbleUpon. If you are curious to see what I have been into lately, I both Tweet and Stumble under the name 'shildner'.

Monday, March 16

• Facebook: 1 comment on my status, 1 event invitation
• Twitter: 1 new follower
• StumbleUpon: no activity

I got a new follower on twitter today. After only one day of Phase II, it looks to be paying off. Surprisingly, Facebook has remained about the same.

On another note; I was stumbling a bit and stumbled on this blog! Someone gave me a thumbs up! I can dig (not digg) that.

Phase II

Today begins Phase II of my little experiment. Every day I will be updating my Facebook profile, following one new person on Twitter, sending one tweet, subscribing to one new person on StumbleUpon, and reviewing one website or blog.

Let's hope we get some people reading this thing. I would love to see some comments on how I can make the experiment more effective.

Phase I Wrap-Up #2

Phase I Popularity
(Facebook starts at 0)

Phase I Wrap-Up #1

Phase I Activity

Friday, March 13

• Facebook: 1 photo comment
  
• Twitter: No activity
• StumbleUpon: No activity

The comment was on a photo that was over a year old. Granted, it is a pretty good photo.

Well, Phase I is officially over. Not really much internet love (not the dirty kind) this week. I will throw up the stats this weekend and start Phase II on Monday. I hope my imaginary readers have a wonderful weekend. Go drink some green beer!

Thursday, March 12

• Facebook: 1 ad from something called SuperPoke
  
• Twitter: No activity
• StumbleUpon: No activity

It took a bit of effort to navigate the new Facebook look, but I think the single ad is all I picked up. One more post for Phase I! Thank god! I realize that I am writing this for no one which is kind of soothing in a way, but next week I can start promoting and maybe I will get some more action. Also, I know y'all are big fans of graphs so I will try to get one or two of those up this weekend.

Wednesday, March 11

• Facebook: 1 new message, 1 friend request, 1 event invite, 3 comments on photos, and 1 wall post. Woot!
  
• Twitter: No activity
• StumbleUpon: No activity

What's up Facebook? Here's the scoop on all the recent buzz I've been getting: the message was about an event in NY (I don't live in NY), I know the kid who wanted to be my friend so I accepted (I'm a pretty nice guy), the event I was invited to was the same as the one I got the message for (screw New York... also, screw "Game Night"), although I was in all the photos commented on, only one directly concerned me (it was from my girlfriend), and the post on my wall was something about watching the Watchmen sex scenes with my girlfriend's family (yes, it was as awkward as you think).

Twitter and StumbleUpon are feeling a bit left out, so let's see if next week we can start boosting some of their numbers.

Tuesday, March 10

• Facebook: 1 comment on a photo I was in (the comment was about a Pizza which was also in the picture)
• Twitter: No activity
• StumbleUpon: No activity

So, Facebook got a hit. Granted, it had nothing to do with me, but worth noting. The pizza was pretty good.

I guess I also should mention some other stats that just occurred to me. You may be curious on what my current record is on these sites. I am certainly not new to any of them, but who is?

• Facebook: you don't need to know how many friends I have
  
• Twitter: following 4 and have 5 followers
  
• StumbleUpon: 7 subscribers and written 8 reviews

Let me know if anyone wants more info that they might think is important to the experiment.

Monday, March 9

• Facebook: No activity
• Twitter: No activity
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Pretty much what I expected for most of this week. Remember, I am doing absolutely nothing on these sites right now; no friending, following, reviewing, etc.

On a side note, I checked the amount of times I have Stumbled and I am clocking in at 30,690! So, I have that going for me.

Check back tomorrow for Tuesday's results.

The Plan

I suppose I should start with the purpose of this thing. Over the next month I will be tracking my internet popularity compared to my involvement in the social network community. Here’s the plan:

After a week of recording my ‘normal’ popularity rate* I will begin Phase 1. Every day I will be updating my Facebook profile, sending one tweet and following one more person on Twitter, and reviewing one website on Stumbleupon. In Phase 2, I step it up to sending three tweets, following three more people and reviewing three websites per day. Facebook will continue to be updated daily. Phase 3 involves sending five tweets per day, following five more people on Twitter and reviewing five more websites for Stumbleupon.

This blog will be updated daily as well and I will provide a weekly wrap-up after each phase. (Expect graphs)

Please feel free to stumble and/or tweet the heck out of me and this blog, but while I appreciate your Facebook friend requests, I probably will not accept unless I have at least shaken your hand.

Enjoy!

Countdown

Here is the plan:

• March 9th - Blog is active, I will post the "business plan," and the control week will be recorded. This week, I will not be taking any steps to promote my popularity and should provide a good representation of my unaltered internet presence.
• March 16th - The experiment begins. I will be posting daily updates on my progress and expect a weekly wrap-up at the end of each week.
• April 12th - The experiment ends and a final analysis will be given.

Wish me luck!