Your Social Media Life – Where Does Your Real Life Fit In?

With all the technology around us and Social Media seeming to take over everything I thought I would write about the convergence of the technology into our everyday life. With me, I’ll post Twitter updates daily as to what I’m doing, usually using Tweedeck or Hootsuite to send the message. It’s usually along the lines of ‘It’s Tuesday, slow production day’ or ‘working on some auditions’ – I’ll even mention a client from time to time. Weekend updates are more along the lines of what movie we’re watching or what my daughter, Lileh is doing. My wife and I have decided not to post any pictures of Lileh on Twitter, however there are plenty on Facebook. (you can follow me on Facebook by clicking here)

Why did we decide to do this?

With Twitter anyone can follow anyone – I recently did some housekeeping on Twitter with a great website tool – Refollow.com – this site allows you to see all of your followers, as well as list them in a variety of different ways. I was somewhat surprised that about 30-40% if people following me have not posted an update to their Twitter accounts in over 30 days – most of these people I unfollowed.

With Facebook there is more security, many of the people who want to follow you have pictures and easy to read profiles, although you can also do this with Twitter if you find the right tools, Facebook seems to be more credible, as you won’t find a spam account or some real estate broker trying to get you a great deal on a home loan . Facebook is built on Friends, and in many cases Friends of Friends, which also adds to it’s credibility – and that’s what it’s about. Credibility and the fact that there is someone behind the message.

It is not that Twitter isn’t credible, in fact they are doing a lot better – I just read an article that their amount of SPAM is now around 1%, which is awesome. However with all the ‘get rich quick’ schemes it seems that SPAM on Twitter may never be fully under control.

Facebook and Twitter are not the only two Social Media outlets, there is also Google Buzz which is newer and built into Gmail. I have a Google Buzz account, but find it difficult to work with. I don’t log into my Gmail account all that often. I have setup my Twitter account to act as my Buzz for now. (I have no Buzz followers as of yet.) I realize that Google Buzz is still pretty new, it’s just going to take some time. I don’t think they will ever be as big as Twitter or Facebook.

What are your thoughts on Social Media, Privacy, and Spam?

Justin Phillips has worked in Commerical radio for over 10 years and has experience with Social Media websites and can assist you in setting up your business for Social Media success!




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Doing Social Media without Overdoing Social Media

I’ve noticed a lot of advertisers are now using Social Media – we received a Pottery Barn and a Victoria’s Secret catalog in the mail the other day, both touting to ‘Follow Them on Facebook’ – They get IT!

Dell has been involved with Social Media for quite a while and they have had great results. All of the tv networks are now on Social Media – you can now follow updates for your favorite shows.

The best way to do your social media presence is to not overdo your social media presence.

Let me explain – first, on Facebook follow someone like Ellen or Jay Leno – see how they post their updates on their shows. It’s not all about how they can “SAVE you MONEY” on EVERY post or how “Restaurant Voiceover Artists are SO Freakin’ Important.” They talk about what is relevant – a funny comment that so and so made or who is in their audience – Ellen asks to you ‘tag’ yourself if you are in an audience photo – not only is this a great way to be interactive it’s GENIUS!

We need to be more interactive with our audience and less SHOUTY. The shouty is what is making people not understand why it’s not working. If you think your going to make a quick buck by posting the same thing about how your “Waffle maker also makes Coffee, has a built in radio and also cleans the cat box and your selling it for only $49, with 5 cats free” over and over. Try another tactic – take a picture of it making coffee and waffles and submit a post to Twitter with a pic that says ‘Got Breakfast’ – just don’t post a pic of the litter box by mistake.

I always welcome your comments below – feel free to start a discussion.

If you are looking for a voice for your product, business, presentation, or voicemail, feel free to visit my page at http://justinphillips.us for my demos, and more about me. I have over 15 years experience in the commercial radio industry and I am also available as a social media consultant.




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Twitter is Like Car – if proper maintenance is done, it can be maintained at peak performance

First off, let me say that I can completely understand why people stop using Twitter shortly after starting – they either don’t get it, don’t know how to use it, or they just get frustrated throw up their arms and say screw this I’m done.

Twitter is like a car – you need to do maintenance to maintain it. Friends and followers are a great thing to have, however how many of them are listening to your ‘Tweets.’ There are a lot of tools out there that can tell you this information, which I will go over in a later blog post. In doing some maintenance of my own recently I noticed that over 15% of the people I was following hadn’t posted ‘Tweet’ in more than a month – if you haven’t posted in more than a month you have been unfollowed. This is the rule that I have for my Twitter accounts. I have also unfollowed those who are pushing spam, that have gotten through my ‘Vetting of Followers’ on SocialOomph. (they hold followers for 72 hours and if you don’t ‘vet’ them within that time, it goes into automatic – which is fine. I don’t always have time go get to the site to vet my followers so some of the moron accounts get through.)
You can use software like TwiPing to help you with you Twitter account(s). This program can show you when someone last sent a Tweet, as well as other parameters, so you can cut down on your moron followers.
I use the above program once a month for my Twitter maintenance purposes. If you have some other sites or programs that can help ‘Vet the moron followers’ feel free to share them below.

The one problem with Twitter is there are so many people out there, some pushing their business, others talking personally, and then there are my favorites – those watching the Phillies or Penn State sports and posting updates and pics of what is going on with the game. (the Big Dance should be fun in the coming days.) The best way to get past the ‘clutter’ of Twitter and Tweets is to stop, take a breath, have a little patience, add some focus to your Twitter profile message, and talk about more than your business when sending a Tweet. Stop the endless message of how your ‘selling Donkeys 2 for 1 for the Circus for only $99 with the purchase of two clowns and a pooping elephant.’ Be yourself, if your at Starbucks and you got great service, tell us about it. If your in traffic, tell us about it – you never know who your going to help – if someone does a search on Traffic in your area, you may make their day as they can plan an alternate route to work. Social networks are meant to be ‘social’ – so say hello to your followers on occasion to show them that you care about their messages, respond to their ‘tweets’.
  Become more interactive, that’s what is fun about Social Media.

Justin Phillips works as a Voiceover Artist and Social Media Guru. He is available for consulting your Social Media project. If you would like to set up a call (via phone or Skype) email him at your convenience.

justin.phillips@live.com

Justin can be found on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with daily updates. For more on Justin click here


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My Social Media Use: TWITTER

First off here is a list of the Social Media programs and websites I use each week(a few are for maintenance and are less often.)
Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow intergration of different types of Social Media Accounts such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
Tweetdeck – I don’t think my ‘Social Media’ life would be the same without this amazing program, that is updated regularly with new tools you can use. It does everything for me but make my coffee in the morning. You can set up columns with each Twitter account(if you are like me and have more than one), have columns for different keyword searches, even include Twitter lists. Tweetdeck constantly updates which means you won’t miss anything. It even offers a login via email incase your computer crashes it saves a backup of your setup so you don’t lose anything.
Hootsuite – I always have this program (web based – for me) running via Google Chrome – it’s similar to Tweetdeck in that it has columns, but I can access it via my phone. It’s great if you have multiple accounts and similar to Tweetdeck in ease of use.
SocialOomph – this webbased service is amazing – my main use on SocialOomph is to Vet My New Followers. It holds new followers for a 72 hour period which allows you the time to look at who is following and determine if you want to follow them back. With some setup, you can also have it send out an automatic Direct Message to those you follow. Like the above, you can setup multiple accounts. With SocialOomph has a lot of tools other than what I mentioned above – You can post Tweets that can be sent later, Unfriend EVERYONE, and see some metrics of who is following you. There are a lot of things to like about SocialOomph and a lot of ways you can use it. This is one site I would definitely check out.
These are just a few of the services out there, I know there are a lot more – feel free to let me know what works for you. I am always interested in working with new networking tools.
Thanks for your time today,
  --Justin

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Inside the Social Media - A Beginners Look (from LifeNuggets blog)

 This entry is from my LifeNuggets blog - it discusses  my Social Media Findings. It was written back in October 2009. 
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  With some things we do in Social Media, one may wonder how anyone gets anywhere with the endless amount of information available at any given time, and in real time to boot! It amazes me that with Twitter you can get news about things WAY ahead of CNN or any other news outlet. It just goes to show how powerful a tool it can be, if used correctly.
I've been riding this Social Media train now for about three months, am looking ahead and can see an almost endless potential for what social media can do for me, and for you too. As mentioned before a good place to start is Twellow it's a Twitter directory, broken down in a variety of ways - first you can look for folks to follow via directory, or simply type in a keyword, say 'voiceover' - you will find my profile at #5 - (as of February 2010 I am now 13th) the site also give you good and detailed information about the 'tweeters' you find, as well as some of their most recent updates.
If your looking for a more 'newsy' approach to Social Media, and the latest 'headlines' click over to Social Media Today. Of course, SMT will also give you other places to check out within Social Media too - so your getting more than just headlines.
Finally, at least for this shortened blog entry, another place that is amazing and filled with good 'nuggets' of information from some great sources is Twine. You have to join this site, but you can see the value on the homepage alone. Once a member search for Social Media(as well as any other interests you have), join some groups, and Twine will send you an email digest to 'digest' at your leisure - pretty cool.
Lastly, I have found several sites that help me with housekeeping(passwords, cleanup, etc.)

myvidoop.com remembers passwords and uses a 3x4 shield for 'your' identity - it's also
OpenID compatible

Comodo offers free security solutions(Firewall, Antivirus, Email Spam) software is reliable and
updates regularly

Tweetdeck specifically for 'Twitter' - allows 'groups' to easily follow certain people - is fully
integrated and even includes Facebook updates as well


Manta  - place to list your small business - allows you to integrate Facebook and Twitter updates and offers a 'clean' template to list your business.

VodPod - allows you to easily integrate videos from social media sites including YouTube, into a clean, streamlined player that allows 'customers' to remain on your site and view your media. (to see it in action visit my site and see the bar on the right)


 if you have other sites worth mentioning or if you found this helpful, please let me know be sending me an email: ontheairproductions@live.com


 you can also follow my On The Air Productions Blog  


Thanks,
—Justin

Justin Phillips is Production Director for radio stations in Eugene, Oregon. He also does freelance voiceover work. His details are listed below.



http://ontheairprod.blogspot.com - main Social Media Integration blog
http://justinphillips.us - Voiceover site
http://justinphillips.voices.com Voices.com Voiceover site


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New Beginnings

To begin, I would like to announce the birth of my daughter, Lileh Jo – born on February 4^th – for pics and updates you can check out our Shutterfly page– she arrived 8 pounds, 20 inches and my wife and I are thrilled – aside from the feedings every three hours – the diaper ‘blowouts’ are quite humorous.
As far as other things I have been up to – I’ve been revamping my voiceover site at http://justinphillips.us and have found some new tools to use that I would like to pass along.  If this is your first visit here I have written another blog called Lifenuggs that is a great starting point before continuing here. I have already talked about box.net for use in file sharing, both on sites like Twitter and also as a ‘clickable’ element on my site. There are some great tools out there, however some do not work very well without Javascipt and Wordpress does not have Javascipt enabled. (they are working on this with the allowance of ‘embeddable code’ that allows functionality. )
Some of the new sites that are worth mentioning include Meebo – this allows you to put a ‘LIVE’ chat box right on your site – you have to download software to your computer and ‘log in’ – on your site it will then show you as ‘Available’ – I use this to ‘chat’ with clients about projects, I also have a link on my site for Google Voice that allows then to direct dial me from their computer.
With the use of Wordpress I discovered a site that allows you to incorporate YouTube, as well as other sites Videos directly into your Wordpress sidebar – check out Vodpod – after you sign up for an account, which takes less than 30 seconds, you can ‘import’ you videos from numerous other sites and create a ‘template’ to place anywhere on the web. When someone clicks on a video on your site it opens it right on the sidebar without opening another window(which is streamlined and very neat.)
If this is your first time by my site, I invite you to read previous posts for more sites, and tools I use. Thanks for reading – more tidbits coming soon!
--JP
Justin Phillips has worked in the commercial radio industry for over fifteen years as an on air talent and behind the scenes in promotions and production. He is voiceover talent for the Radio Forecast Network and is heard daily across the US reading forecasts on tv and radio stations. Justin is a self taught member of the Social Media – and has sites on Facebook, Linked In and Twitter.
Justin is also available to assist you in your business as a consultant. For more information contact him via email: - ontheairproductions@live.com

Is There a Social Media Overkill? How Much IS Too Much?

I have a lot of sites that push my voiceover business to my main site at http://justinphillips.us – I am experimenting with some different blogging websites in an effort to expand my voiceover reach via different search engines. (consider it my way of taking over the world.) Of course my main site, listed above, also has links to my Facebook, Voices.com, and other pages in the internet universe, but I often ask myself how much is TOO much. The answer, at least, for me right now is ‘I can’t have too much’ – in trying to build a business around my voiceovers. If I created an online business card it would have more than six links to my various sites, which I know is overkill. With all this ‘web technology’ I need to figure out what works best for me.

For example, on Twitter I am justinphillips – this is my personal account. I also have the handle jpvoice – as a voiceover account then there is the On The Air Productions by Justin Phillips account – otaproductions and another account at ontheairprod. I know you are confused, but probably not as confused as I am. Some of these accounts were created for the purpose of trial and error and a few have been taken out of the ‘Twitter Timeline.’

Fortunately, Twitter is really the only site that I have more than two accounts. I have one account on Facebook – I haven’t gone as far as created a ‘Fan page’ yet for On The Air Productions, but am considering it. Many of my ‘friends’ on Facebook that I follow outside of family and several business associates are people within the voiceover community. I have to be honest I don’t really engage many of them in conversation, I just catch their updates as far as what they are doing and occasionally comment.

I keep hearing about engaging with people which I need to do more of and I know this.

My question for you is how much IS too much? and the even scarier question – Will there be a point where 6 links on a business card is considered ‘the norm’ – if so I’m ahead of a lot of people.

 

--Justin Phillips

On The Air Productions

ontheairproductions@live.com