Most businesses have a fan page, a twitter account and a website, but they are confused on how to use each service and where to post their content.

An explanation that I think fits: Look at Facebook/Twitter (and any other service) as property that you rent, you have control of it, but if the landlord wants to make changes or upgrades you dont have much control over what he does. Where as your website should be looked at as property that you own, you have final say over what happens in and around it. This is why everything should first be on your website and why you should use other services to drive traffic to your site.

I’ll post more detailed strategies in the upcoming posts. I hope this will get you thinking about your site and where you are posting your content.

Create on your site – Share on others – Drive back to your site.

(Image via smemon87)

I can say your restaurant sucks, your shop smells and your wife is fat. It’s all right, because I’m anonymous.

Get it?  Anonymous or trolls as many like to call them have been an issue since the first forum was created.

Facebook and Twitter profiles should be required to comment. I want to know who you are. I want to engage in a conversation with you. Whether you agree or disagree with what I have said.

Let yourself be discovered… engage with people… be part of a community

Don’t be invisible just because you can.

Photo Courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakecaptive/

Did the AP buy the rights to the photo? No, they did not buy the rights.

Did you sell it to someone else? No, I actually copyrighted the photo and control the rights to them. Anyone interested in using the photo needs to have my permission.

How do you feel about the unlicensed use of the photo? It is what it is. I posted it on a public site to my 170 followers. I did not send it to CNN or FOX. I am satisfied with how everything has unfolded.  A lot of good has come of this event and I can’t get mad at something that I have no control over. When I took the photo my priority was rescuing the passengers of the plane and not selling the rights to one of the news organizations.

Lessons for citizen journalist? What would you change about the current structure of distribution?

Firstly, anyone at anytime can be a citizen journalist. You can’t prepare for it. You can only get lucky enough that you know what to do in an emergency situation. That may mean spreading the news or just being able to help the distressed people. Prepartion is the key here, as one of my favorite quotes states:

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Seneca

If you’re a journalist, I recommend being on top of all the new tech apps. Ot at least know how to do the basic things like tweet, send an email with a photo, etc… You should not try to figure it out on the spot. A quote from Professor Sree Sreenivasant perfectly states it:

“When a plane lands in the Hudson, it’s too late to figure out Twitter” – Prof. Sree Sreenivasan (@sreenet)

The Future?

One thing that I would like to see is the protection of photos in services like TwitPic, YFrog, TweetPhoto, and others. If they implement some type of distribution avenue it could make sense in events of significance. News organization would know where to look for their info and the photographers would be compensated for their material.

I don’t like what iReport and others are doing. They are getting people to send their property to them and they get nothing back, at best a credit when they show it on air. I think this is putting professional photographers out of jobs and devaluing the craft of photography.

Does the business model work?

The downfall of citizen powered services like Scoopt  was the fact that the likely hood of someone choosing that one particular service was very low. However, majority of photos are being uploaded to about 4 photo sharing sites. If they would work out a way to distribute note worthy photos it would help citizen journalists monetize their top shots and give incentives to professional to use these sites.

I know that there is a fine line between locking photos up and having them totally open. If a middle ground can be established then we could really see a lot of value. I think that is a major obstacle but one that can be solved.

I don’t know if the numbers make sense. But after speaking to a few journalism students at Columbia. They expressed interested in a service that would be geo-location enabled and provide them with photos of small and large events that they could report on. Journalists want access to as much information as possible.

I hope this answers some questions. If you have any more, leave a comment or email me and I will get back to you.

My informal talk at Columbia Journalism School:

Related Articles:

• Can Citizen Photo Agency Demotix Succeed Where Scoopt Failed? http://ow.ly/1gdHL
• Twitter Can Be Vital In Covering Breaking News — A Non-Journalist Teaches Us How: http://ow.ly/1lgvp

I Need Your Vote!

My tweet of the Miracle on the Hudson is up for Tweet of the Year and TwitPic of the Year. I need everyone who reads this post to click on the links and vote for me. This will take you 1 minute to do. I have timed myself at 53 seconds.

Thank you, I’ve listed the tweet and twitpic below. Post in comments if you are confused on how to vote and I will explain it again.

My Tweet:

Vote for Tweet of the Year: http://twitpic.com/135xa

My TwitPic:

Vote for TwitPic of the Year: @jkrums

Top Competition for the Awards (I looked at the voting page to see who has multiple votes):

Tweet of the Year:

• Barack Obama
• • Does not actually tweet…
• Astro Mike
• • This is pretty sweet, he tweeted from space.

TwitPic of the Year:

Don’t know anything about these guys, they seem to be good people. But, I want the win. So go out and vote for me!

• collective_soul
• andyskib

Do you control your brand? What do people find when they search for you? Have you had legal/negative press and now it's front and center on search results? If so, you have to take control of your brand. 

This applies to businesses and individuals, there is absolutely no excuse for ignorance on this subject. You need to know all the top search results and how they got there. In these times the first thing a person does when they meet someone new is Google them. 

Be prepared. 

Do you know how to control it? If you don't then you need to learn the proper steps to take. 

I have outlined the most essential ones. These are a must. 

Step 1: Social Media Sites

• Sign up to Facebook
• Fill out your Google Profile
• Professional Info Sites: LinkedIn, Fast Pitch 

Social media sites will let you connect with many friends and business contacts. You are controlling the information and this information will be analyzed by search engines to push the most relevant content to the front of search results. 

Step 2: Blog, MicroBlog, and the Inbetween

• Start a Blog, use either WordPress, TypePad, or Blogger
• Sign up to either Tumblr or Posterous
• Join Twitter

These services allow you to have various levels of engagement with the online world. You can be as brief as 140 characters or write till your fingers bleed on a blog post. Blogs get high search results because the search spiders look for fresh content, so anything that is new will have a higher chance of appearing before the older content that was there before. 

Step 3: Be Social and Explore

• Interact with other bloggers
• Have guest authors
• Spread your name on the web 
• Go to tweetups or meetups in your area

By being active and positive you will soon have links going to your site. This makes your site look more important to the search spiders and will give you better search results. Besides the search result attributes, you get to know more people who now are interested by what you have to say and are able to promote or spread your brand further organically. 

The steps above are very general and can be applied by both individuals and businesses. To go more in-depth I will post something directly for each side for further optimization. 

Please leave a comment and let me know what I missed or questions you might have. 

You may have questions: Who do I follow? Should I follow someone back? What should I say? Will anyone follow me back? Is this a waste of time?

The answer is in how you use it. Do you know why you are on twitter? Are you there to share or promote yourself or a business? Or, are you on twitter to be a watcher, to find braking news, interesting posts and celebrity gossip? Or to connect with friends that are already using twitter? 

These are things that you need to know. Because, your behavior on twitter will be very different depending on your goal.

For me it breaks down to two types of Users: Content Generators: Go-Getters and Content Absorbers: The Watchers. 

Go-Getter Tips

If you are going to promote and make it a goal to get as many followers in any way possible then you need a game plan. You need to check out certain twitter "celebrity" users who have great tips in what services you can use. At this point in the game there is a service for every type of need. So go out there and start you search. 

             (Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mychatham/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

                  (Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lchifi/ / CC BY 2.0)

• Follow the suggested users. Not all of them, but some will give you good stuff.
• Find your favorite celebrity. Author. Singer. Whoever.  
• Follow Perez Hilton 
• Or Richard Branson 
• Or Britney Spears 
• Or The_Real_Shaq 
• Sit back and relax. 

Not much to it. If a friend joins follow them and otherwise enjoy the ride. 

I know there are many more variations on the "typical" twitter user. But, I think it breaks down to just two core users: content providers and content absorbers. There might be different styles for each one but at its core these are the two. 

Try to be yourself and be a positive influence in the Twitter community. 

 

1st Video: Political and Celebrity Impressions Views: 1.7 Million